KTH/SU Mathematics Colloquium
October 21, 2009; 16:00-17:00 in room 3721
Peter Jagers, Chalmers University of Technology
Extinction: how often, how soon, and in what way?
Branching processes were born out of the observation that extinction (of
separate families or subpopulations) is ubiquitous in nature and society. This
lead to Galton's and Watson's famous error, as they
claimed that all family lines must die out, even in exponentially growing
populations. We look back at this discussion, and proceed to exhibiting the
time and path to extinction.