- Yugoslavian-born
US mathematician largely responsible for making the theory of probability
accessible to students of subjects other than mathematics through his
textbook on the subject. In the theory of limits, he formulated the
law of the iterated logarithm.
Feller was born and educated in Zagreb and also studied in Germany at
Göttingen. He worked at the University of Stockholm 1933-39. On
the outbreak of World War II, he emigrated to the USA. He was professor
of mathematics at Cornell University, New York, 1945-50, and at Princeton
from 1950.
Feller came to the conclusion, early on, that the traditional emphasis
placed on averages meant that insufficient attention was paid to random
fluctuations. Much of his study of probability theory focused on the
nature of Markov processes (a mathematical description of random changes
in a system which, for instance, can occur in either of two states).
Feller demonstrated the applicability of this tool to subjects in which
probability theory had not usually previously been employed; for example,
in the study of genetics.
His work is set out in Introduction to Probability Theory and its Applications
1950-66.
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