Artigo Acesso aberto Revisado por pares

Branching Processes as Population Dynamics

1995; Chapman and Hall London; Volume: 1; Issue: 1/2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/3318688

ISSN

1573-9759

Autores

Peter Jagers,

Tópico(s)

Mathematical and Theoretical Epidemiology and Ecology Models

Resumo

Population dynamics, and even a concern for the destiny of human populations, is certainly what once gave birth to branching processes, and did so on repeated occasions. Bienaym6 (1845) formulated what later became known as the Galton-Watson process with the purpose of studying the 'fate [of extinction] that allegedly hangs over the aristocracy and middle classes'. Galton's own formulation, in terms of the possible survival of the family names of N adult males who colonize a district, has become more than famous (Galton 1873). Still half a century later, when Andrei Nikolaevich Kolmogorov (1903-87) worked on branching processes, population dynamical questions seemed very much in focus. His works have titles like 'The solution of a biological problem' and 'The transition of branching processes into diffusion processes and related genetic problems' (Kolmogorov 1938; 1959). Among them you may also notice a short work with the astounding title 'On a new confirmation of Mendel's laws' (Kolmogorov 1940). The point is the year, during the Hitler-Stalin pact, when Lysenko's grip over Soviet genetics was firm. I have included it to honour Kolmogorov as a scientist

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