J. F. C. Kingman – författare

In the theory of random processes there are two that are fundamental, and occur over and over again, often in surprising ways. There is a real sense in which the deepest results are concerned with their interplay. One, the Bachelier Wiener model of Brownian motion, has been the subject of many books. The other, the Poisson process, seems at first sight humbler and less worthy of study in its own right. Nearly every book mentions it, but most hurry past to more general point processes or Markov chains. This comparative neglect is ill judged, and stems from a lack of perception of the real importance of the Poisson process. This distortion partly comes about from a restriction to one dimension, while the theory becomes more natural in more general context. This book attempts to redress the balance. It records Kingman's fascination with the beauty and wide applicability of Poisson processes in one or more dimensions. The mathematical theory is powerful, and a few key results often produce surprising consequences.

The authors believe that a proper treatment of probability theory requires an adequate background in the theory of finite measures in general spaces. The first part of their book sets out this material in a form that not only provides an introduction for intending specialists in measure theory but also meets the needs of students of probability. The theory of measure and integration is presented for general spaces, with Lebesgue measure and the Lebesgue integral considered as important examples whose special properties are obtained. The introduction to functional analysis which follows covers the material (such as the various notions of convergence) which is relevant to probability theory and also the basic theory of L2-spaces, important in modern physics. The second part of the book is an account of the fundamental theoretical ideas which underlie the applications of probability in statistics and elsewhere, developed from the results obtained in the first part. A large number of examples is included; these form an essential part of the development.

The authors believe that a proper treatment of probability theory requires an adequate background in the theory of finite measures in general spaces. The first part of their book sets out this material in a form that not only provides an introduction for intending specialists in measure theory but also meets the needs of students of probability. The theory of measure and integration is presented for general spaces, with Lebesgue measure and the Lebesgue integral considered as important examples whose special properties are obtained. The introduction to functional analysis which follows covers the material (such as the various notions of convergence) which is relevant to probability theory and also the basic theory of L2-spaces, important in modern physics. The second part of the book is an account of the fundamental theoretical ideas which underlie the applications of probability in statistics and elsewhere, developed from the results obtained in the first part. A large number of examples is included; these form an essential part of the development.

This collection of papers is dedicated to David Kendall (Professor of Mathematical Statistics in the University of Cambridge) on the occasion of his 65th birthday. The content of the contributions indicates the breadth of his interests in mathematics and statistics, and the interrelation between mathematical analysis, the theory of probability, and mathematical statistics. The topics will interest postgraduate and research mathematicians.