ABSTRACT
The term ‘stochastic process’ entered the statistical vocabulary in the 1950s, although the study of such processes goes back to the origins of probability theory. Feller's Probability Theory and Its Applications, Vol. 1 appeared in 1950 and was both a definitive landmark and a stimulus to much of what followed. The applications of the title were of a rather academic kind, but epidemiology and biology generally soon provided a rich field for applied work. Human populations also exhibit the essential characteristics of a stochastic process in that their social structure develops over time in an uncertain manner. In retrospect, at least, it is obvious that there was a great opportunity to apply the newly developed theory to sociology.
