Kai Lai Chung – författare

In this edition two new chapters, 9 and 10, on mathematical finance are added. They are written by Dr. Farid AitSahlia, ancien eleve, who has taught such a course and worked on the research staff of several industrial and financial institutions. The new text begins with a meticulous account of the uncommon vocab­ ulary and syntax of the financial world; its manifold options and actions, with consequent expectations and variations, in the marketplace. These are then expounded in clear, precise mathematical terms and treated by the methods of probability developed in the earlier chapters. Numerous graded and motivated examples and exercises are supplied to illustrate the appli­ cability of the fundamental concepts and techniques to concrete financial problems. For the reader whose main interest is in finance, only a portion of the first eight chapters is a "prerequisite" for the study of the last two chapters. Further specific references may be scanned from the topics listed in the Index, then pursued in more detail.

Since the publication of the first edition of this classic textbook over thirty years ago, tens of thousands of students have used A Course in Probability Theory. New in this edition is an introduction to measure theory that expands the market, as this treatment is more consistent with current courses.While there are several books on probability, Chung''s book is considered a classic, original work in probability theory due to its elite level of sophistication.

This book contains about 500 exercises consisting mostly of special cases and examples, second thoughts and alternative arguments, natural extensions, and some novel departures. With a few obvious exceptions they are neither profound nor trivial, and hints and comments are appended to many of them. If they tend to be somewhat inbred, at least they are relevant to the text and should help in its digestion. As a bold venture I have marked a few of them with a * to indicate a "must", although no rigid standard of selection has been used. Some of these are needed in the book, but in any case the reader''s study of the text will be more complete after he has tried at least those problems.

Since the publication of the first edition of this classic textbook over thirty years ago, tens of thousands of students have used A Course in Probability Theory. New in this edition is an introduction to measure theory that expands the market, as this treatment is more consistent with current courses.

While there are several books on probability, Chung's book is considered a classic, original work in probability theory due to its elite level of sophistication.

In this edition two new chapters, 9 and 10, on mathematical finance are added. They are written by Dr. Farid AitSahlia, ancien eleve, who has taught such a course and worked on the research staff of several industrial and financial institutions. The new text begins with a meticulous account of the uncommon vocab­ ulary and syntax of the financial world; its manifold options and actions, with consequent expectations and variations, in the marketplace. These are then expounded in clear, precise mathematical terms and treated by the methods of probability developed in the earlier chapters. Numerous graded and motivated examples and exercises are supplied to illustrate the appli­ cability of the fundamental concepts and techniques to concrete financial problems. For the reader whose main interest is in finance, only a portion of the first eight chapters is a "prerequisite" for the study of the last two chapters. Further specific references may be scanned from the topics listed in the Index, then pursued in more detail.

From the reviews of the First Edition:"This excellent book is based on several sets of lecture notes written over a decade and has its origin in a one-semester course given by the author at the ETH, Zürich, in the spring of 1970. The author's aim was to present some of the best features of Markov processes and, in particular, of Brownian motion with a minimum of prerequisites and technicalities. The reader who becomes acquainted with the volume cannot but agree with the reviewer that the author was very successful in accomplishing this goal…The volume is very useful for people who wish to learn Markov processes but it seems to the reviewer that it is also of great interest to specialists in this area who could derive much stimulus from it. One can be convinced that it will receive wide circulation." (Mathematical Reviews)This new edition contains 9 new chapters which include new exercises, references, and multiple corrections throughout the original text.

From the reviews of the First Edition:

"This excellent book is based on several sets of lecture notes written over a decade and has its origin in a one-semester course given by the author at the ETH, Zürich, in the spring of 1970. The author''s aim was to present some of the best features of Markov processes and, in particular, of Brownian motion with a minimum of prerequisites and technicalities. The reader who becomes acquainted with the volume cannot but agree with the reviewer that the author was very successful in accomplishing this goal…The volume is very useful for people who wish to learn Markov processes but it seems to the reviewer that it is also of great interest to specialists in this area who could derive much stimulus from it. One can be convinced that it will receive wide circulation." (Mathematical Reviews)

This new edition contains 9 new chapters which include new exercises, references, and multiple corrections throughout the original text.

In this edition two new chapters, 9 and 10, on mathematical finance are added. They are written by Dr. Farid AitSahlia, ancien eleve, who has taught such a course and worked on the research staff of several industrial and financial institutions. The new text begins with a meticulous account of the uncommon vocab­ ulary and syntax of the financial world; its manifold options and actions, with consequent expectations and variations, in the marketplace. These are then expounded in clear, precise mathematical terms and treated by the methods of probability developed in the earlier chapters. Numerous graded and motivated examples and exercises are supplied to illustrate the appli­ cability of the fundamental concepts and techniques to concrete financial problems. For the reader whose main interest is in finance, only a portion of the first eight chapters is a "prerequisite" for the study of the last two chapters. Further specific references may be scanned from the topics listed in the Index, then pursued in more detail.

From the reviews of the First Edition:"This excellent book is based on several sets of lecture notes written over a decade and has its origin in a one-semester course given by the author at the ETH, Zürich, in the spring of 1970. The author's aim was to present some of the best features of Markov processes and, in particular, of Brownian motion with a minimum of prerequisites and technicalities. The reader who becomes acquainted with the volume cannot but agree with the reviewer that the author was very successful in accomplishing this goal…The volume is very useful for people who wish to learn Markov processes but it seems to the reviewer that it is also of great interest to specialists in this area who could derive much stimulus from it. One can be convinced that it will receive wide circulation." (Mathematical Reviews)This new edition contains 9 new chapters which include new exercises, references, and multiple corrections throughout the original text.

This book evolved from several stacks of lecture notes written over a decade and given in classes at slightly varying levels. In transforming the over­ lapping material into a book, I aimed at presenting some of the best features of the subject with a minimum of prerequisities and technicalities. (Needless to say, one man''s technicality is another''s professionalism. ) But a text frozen in print does not allow for the latitude of the classroom; and the tendency to expand becomes harder to curb without the constraints of time and audience. The result is that this volume contains more topics and details than I had intended, but I hope the forest is still visible with the trees. The book begins at the beginning with the Markov property, followed quickly by the introduction of option al times and martingales. These three topics in the discrete parameter setting are fully discussed in my book A Course In Probability Theory (second edition, Academic Press, 1974). The latter will be referred to throughout this book as the Course, and may be considered as a general background; its specific use is limited to the mate­ rial on discrete parameter martingale theory cited in § 1. 4. Apart from this and some dispensable references to Markov chains as examples, the book is self-contained.

The late Professor Pao-Lu Hsu's statistical work was primarily concerned with inference in univariate and multivariate linear models and with the associated distribution theory, both exact and asymptotic. This volume contains all of Hsu's mathematical papers published between 1935 and 1970. It comprises 40 articles, and several additional commentaries and discussions of Hsu's work in inference, multivariate analysis, and probability by Lehmann, Anderson, and Chung. Further commentaries, by various authors, have been appended to some of the papers. Hsu's colleagues Kiang and Tuan in Beijing have rewritten their memorial tribute for this occasion.

From the reviews: J. Neveu, 1962 in Zentralblatt fur Mathematik, 92.Band Heft 2, p. 343: "Ce livre ecrit par l'un des plus eminents specialistes en la matiere, est un expose tres detaille de la theorie des processus de Markov definis sur un espace denombrable d'etats et homogenes dans le temps (chaines stationnaires de Markov)." N.Jain, 2008 in Selected Works of Kai Lai Chung, edited by Farid AitSahlia (University of Florida, USA), Elton Hsu (Northwestern University, USA), & Ruth Williams (University of California-San Diego, USA), Chapter 1, p. 15: "This monograph deals with countable state Markov chains in both discrete time (Part I) and continuous time (Part II). [...] Much of Kai Lai's fundamental work in the field is included in this monograph. Here, for the first time, Kai Lai gave a systematic exposition of the subject which includes classification of states, ratio ergodic theorems, and limit theorems for functionals of the chain."

This is a collection of articles by Kai Lai Chung, previously published in the series Séminaire de Probabilités of the Lecture Notes in Mathematics, published on the occasion of the 2010 conference in Hong Kong in memory of Kai Lai Chung.

The theory of Markov chains, although a special case of Markov processes, is here developed for its own sake and presented on its own merits. In general, the hypothesis of a denumerable state space, which is the defining hypothesis of what we call a "chain" here, generates more clear-cut questions and demands more precise and definitive an­ swers. For example, the principal limit theorem (§§ 1. 6, II. 10), still the object of research for general Markov processes, is here in its neat final form; and the strong Markov property (§ 11. 9) is here always applicable. While probability theory has advanced far enough that a degree of sophistication is needed even in the limited context of this book, it is still possible here to keep the proportion of definitions to theorems relatively low. . From the standpoint of the general theory of stochastic processes, a continuous parameter Markov chain appears to be the first essentially discontinuous process that has been studied in some detail. It is common that the sample functions of such a chain have discontinuities worse than jumps, and these baser discontinuities play a central role in the theory, of which the mystery remains to be completely unraveled. In this connection the basic concepts of separability and measurability, which are usually applied only at an early stage of the discussion to establish a certain smoothness of the sample functions, are here applied constantly as indispensable tools.

The theory of Markov chains, although a special case of Markov processes, is here developed for its own sake and presented on its own merits. In general, the hypothesis of a denumerable state space, which is the defining hypothesis of what we call a "chain" here, generates more clear-cut questions and demands more precise and definitive an­ swers. For example, the principal limit theorem (§§ 1. 6, II. 10), still the object of research for general Markov processes, is here in its neat final form; and the strong Markov property (§ 11. 9) is here always applicable. While probability theory has advanced far enough that a degree of sophistication is needed even in the limited context of this book, it is still possible here to keep the proportion of definitions to theorems relatively low. . From the standpoint of the general theory of stochastic processes, a continuous parameter Markov chain appears to be the first essentially discontinuous process that has been studied in some detail. It is common that the sample functions of such a chain have discontinuities worse than jumps, and these baser discontinuities play a central role in the theory, of which the mystery remains to be completely unraveled. In this connection the basic concepts of separability and measurability, which are usually applied only at an early stage of the discussion to establish a certain smoothness of the sample functions, are here applied constantly as indispensable tools.

From the reviews: J. Neveu, 1962 in Zentralblatt fur Mathematik, 92.Band Heft 2, p. 343: "Ce livre ecrit par l'un des plus eminents specialistes en la matiere, est un expose tres detaille de la theorie des processus de Markov definis sur un espace denombrable d'etats et homogenes dans le temps (chaines stationnaires de Markov)." N.Jain, 2008 in Selected Works of Kai Lai Chung, edited by Farid AitSahlia (University of Florida, USA), Elton Hsu (Northwestern University, USA), & Ruth Williams (University of California-San Diego, USA), Chapter 1, p. 15: "This monograph deals with countable state Markov chains in both discrete time (Part I) and continuous time (Part II). [...] Much of Kai Lai's fundamental work in the field is included in this monograph. Here, for the first time, Kai Lai gave a systematic exposition of the subject which includes classification of states, ratio ergodic theorems, and limit theorems for functionals of the chain."

This invaluable book consists of two parts. Part I is the second edition of the author's widely acclaimed publication Green, Brown, and Probability, which first appeared in 1995. In this exposition the author reveals, from a historical perspective, the beautiful relations between the Brownian motion process in probability theory and two important aspects of the theory of partial differential equations initiated from the problems in electricity — Green's formula for solving the boundary value problem of Laplace equations and the Newton-Coulomb potential.Part II of the book comprises lecture notes based on a short course on “Brownian Motion on the Line” which the author has given to graduate students at Stanford University. It emphasizes the methodology of Brownian motion in the relatively simple case of one-dimensional space. Numerous exercises are included.

This book begins with a historical essay entitled “Will the Sun Rise Again?” and ends with a general address entitled “Mathematics and Applications”. The articles cover an interesting range of topics: combinatoric probabilities, classical limit theorems, Markov chains and processes, potential theory, Brownian motion, Schrödinger-Feynman problems, etc. They include many addresses presented at international conferences and special seminars, as well as memorials to and reminiscences of prominent contemporary mathematicians and reviews of their works. Rare old photos of many of them enliven the book.

Beginning with a problem raised by the late Chinese mathematician Loo-Keng Hua, and the author's solution, this book discusses general Markov chains, a subject extremely popular in China in the fifties/sixties. The author emphasizes methodology like the first entrance and last exit decompositions, leading to the most beautiful results by Kolmogorov, Doeblin, and himself. Next he discusses the continuous time case in which names like Paul Lévy and Doob enter and there are hard analytic problems such as differentiability and systems of differential equations which are nicely solved. Next he introduces Brownian motion or Wiener process as the most famous Markov process, relates the probability theory to grand old mathematical-physics associated with Green, Dirichlet, Schrodinger and Feynman. Finally there comes an excursion into general probabilistic methodology. This book contains many examples and exercises with hints and discussions.

This volume shows modern probabilistic methods in action: Brownian Motion Process as applied to the electrical phenomena investigated by Green et al., beginning with the Newton-Coulomb potential and ending with solutions by first and last exits of Brownian paths from conductors.

This volume shows modern probabilistic methods in action: Brownian Motion Process as applied to the electrical phenomena investigated by Green et al., beginning with the Newton-Coulomb potential and ending with solutions by first and last exits of Brownian paths from conductors.

This invaluable book consists of two parts. Part I is the second edition of the author's widely acclaimed publication Green, Brown, and Probability, which first appeared in 1995. In this exposition the author reveals, from a historical perspective, the beautiful relations between the Brownian motion process in probability theory and two important aspects of the theory of partial differential equations initiated from the problems in electricity — Green's formula for solving the boundary value problem of Laplace equations and the Newton-Coulomb potential.Part II of the book comprises lecture notes based on a short course on “Brownian Motion on the Line” which the author has given to graduate students at Stanford University. It emphasizes the methodology of Brownian motion in the relatively simple case of one-dimensional space. Numerous exercises are included.

This book is made up of two essays on the role of time in probability and quantum physics. In the first one, K L Chung explains why, in his view, probability theory starts where random time appears. This idea is illustrated in various probability schemes and the deep impact of those random times on the theory of the stochastic process is shown.In the second essay J-C Zambrini shows why quantum physics is not a regular probabilistic theory, but also why stochastic analysis provides new tools for analyzing further the meaning of Feynman's path integral approach and a number of foundational issues of quantum physics far beyond what is generally considered. The role of the time parameter, in this theory, is critically re-examined and a fresh way to approach the long-standing problem of the quantum time observable is suggested.