Product Description

This successful text has now been comprehensively revised. There are three main aims: to provide a simple but rigorous introduction to probability without exposing the reader to over-much measure theory, to discuss a wide range of random processes in some depth with many examples, and to give the beginner some flavour of more advanced work, by suitable choice of material. The book begins with basic material commonly covered in first-year undergraduate mathematics and statistics courses, and finishes with topics to be found in graduate courses. Important features of this new edition include: new and expanded sections in the early chapters providing more illustrative examples and introducing more ideas early on; two new chapters providing more comprehensive treatment of the simpler properties of martingales and diffusion processes; and more exercises at the ends of almost all sections, with many new problems at the ends of the chapters. The companion volumes Probability and Random Processes: Problems and Solutions (Oxford University Press 1992) includes complete worked solutions to all exercises and problems of this edition. This book is intended for students at all undergraduate and graduate levels in mathematics and statistics.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #846753 in Books
• Published on: 1992-07-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 600 pages

Short Book Reviews of the ISI
"... this is definitely one of my favourites as a textbook ... a wealth of interesting teaching material at all levels"

Zentralblatt fur Mathematik
"The reviewer greatly enjoyed going through the book, not least due to its diversity, its up-to-date flavour and its many interesting and amusing examples. It is highly recommended as one of the nicest texts at its level"

Mathematika
"The first edition was excellent, but the second edition is even better. The companion "Problems and Solution", contains 675 carefully chosen problems with well explained solutions. Buy them both!"

Customer Reviews

Very well written and wide ranging
This is a serious textbook, extremely well written, and not for the fainthearted. Buy the companion book with the solutions to the problems unless you have a tutor or are taking a course. As an engineer who uses maths as a means to an end, I'm finding it hard going, but well worth the effort.

If you just want a cookbook of algorithms, look elsewhere. But if you're willing to take some time, I'd recommend this.

Excellent and up-to-date.
This book is too fast-paced for most beginning undergraduates, but is excellent for honours students in mathematics and statistics. It is also the best book I have seen for research students in mathematics or statistics and an excellent resource for anyone doing research in mathematics, statistics, economics, operational research or computing who needs a thorough, up-to-date text on probability theory.

The book starts with five chapters on standard probability theory and then covers a variety of topics of interest to a wider audience. These include Markov processes and queueing theory, stationary processes, martingales and diffusion processes. It covers succinctly topics such as brownian motion, the Black-Scholes equation, Markov chain Monte Carlo and the Metropolis algorithm. Even topics such as Erdos' probabalistic method are covered in the exercises.

There are lots of entertaining and helpful comments about the problems and history of probabilty. The exercises are interesting and instructive.

I would have liked some more references in the text to help follow up some of the methods described.

This is not a quick reference book.
I was looking for a desktop reference book to provide some background information on the probability distributions that I needed in my modelling work. This book does not provide easily accessible information, unless you are familiar with the language of set theory.

The biggest complaint I have, is the fact the exercises in the book have no solutions; to get the solutions you have to purchase their other book One Thousand Exercises in Probability...