The Collaborative International Dictionary
Stochastic \Sto*chas"tic\ (st[-o]*k[a^]s"t[i^]k), a. [Gr. stochastiko`s, from stocha`zesqai to aim, to guess, fr. sto`chos mark or aim.]
Conjectural; able to conjecture. [Obs.]
--Whitefoot.random; chance; involving probability; opposite of deterministic.
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(Statistics) of or pertaining to a process in which a series of calculations, selections, or observations are made, each one being randomly determined as a sample from a probability distribution.
Note: Where physical phenomena are modelled as a stochastic process, each subsequent calculation of a series may depend on the result of the previous calculation, as in the modelling of the process of diffusion of molecules. Many series may be calculated, and the results averaged, to estimate the most likely result. See also Markov chain. [PJC] -- sto*chas"tic*al*ly, adv.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1660s, "pertaining to conjecture," from Greek stokhastikos "able to guess, conjecturing," from stokhazesthai "to guess, aim at, conjecture," from stokhos "a guess, aim, target, mark," literally "pointed stick set up for archers to shoot at," from PIE *stogh-, variant of root *stegh- "to stick, prick; pointed" (see sting (v.)). The sense of "randomly determined" is from 1934, from German stochastik (1917).
Wiktionary
a. random, randomly determined.
WordNet
adj. being or having a random variable; "a stochastic variable"; "stochastic processes"
Wikipedia
A stochastic event or system is one that is unpredictable because of a random variable. The word stochastic comes from the Greek στόχος (stokhos, "aim"). It occurs in various professional and academic fields.
Researchers use the term stochastic systems to describe the physical systems in which the values of parameters, measurements, expected input, and disturbances are uncertain. In probability theory, a purely stochastic system is one whose state is randomly determined, having a random probability distribution or pattern that may be analyzed statistically but may not be predicted precisely. In this regard, it can be classified as non- deterministic (i.e., "random") so that the subsequent state of the system is determined probabilistically. Any system or process that must be analyzed using probability theory is at least partly stochastic. Stochastic systems and processes play a fundamental role in mathematical models of phenomena in many fields of science, engineering, finance, and economics.
Usage examples of "stochastic".
Fourier analysis, ergodic functions, Cauchy distributions, and other stochastic methods had made no sense of it.
In fact, Amalfi realized suddenly and with amazement, the fraud he had practised upon Jorn the Apostle had been no fraud at all, at least to this extent: that the New Earth-men were content with randomness, just as the Stochastics professed themselves to be, and had no interest in imposing purpose upon it or upon their own lives except as it was forced upon them from outside, either by someone like Jorn, or by someone like Amalfi in opposition to Jorn.
A random resplicing of human genes with macromolecules scraped off deep-space meteorshe likes to call it stochastic creation.
We will draw direct links from it to the consultative bodies: the ASJ, the Academy of Sorrow and Joy, the APF, the Academy of Productive Forces, the ASP the Academy of Stochastics and Prognostication, the APL, the Academy of the Psychophysiology of Labour.
Fourier analysis, Galois theory, stochastic processes and other techniques to outwit the world experts in creating or breaking codes and ciphers.
Wili had completed his first pass through functional analysis and now undertook a three-pronged expedition that Naismith had set for him: into finite galois theory, stochastics, and electromagnetics.
Computers and those who serve them, humanplayer statisticians and psephologists, the stochastic community who are in charge, reducing world and problems to collection of weighted maybes, delivering not what is needed so much as what computers able to do.
This is a stochastic process that at each step effaces the path it takes.
It called for aggressive hiring of mathematicians expert in such esoteric fields as stochastic and Markov processes, shift register, and polynomial theory.
A new mind born from the old machine through a stochastic relinkage of circuit elements.
Players of Null-A, the Prelude to Space, Thunder and Roses, Armageddon, the Time Machine, the Mason' Word, the Monkey Business, the Works, the Eight of Swords, Gorilla Warfare, the Box Lunch, the Primate Kingdom, the New Aeon, the Enola Gay, the Octet Truss, the Stochastic Process, the Fluxions, the Burning House, the Phantom Captain, the Decline of the West, the Duelists, the Call of the Wild, Consciousness III, the Reorganized Church of the Latter-Day Saints, Standard Oil of Ohio, the Zig-Zag Men, the Rubble Risers, the Children of Ra, TNT, Acceptable Radiation, the Pollution Level, the Great Beast, the Whores of Babylon, the Waste Land, the Ugly Truth, the Final .
So he'd picked up some here and there, and one day last summer he got around to talking stochastic music and digital computers with one technician.
Aeon, the Enola Gay, the Octet Truss, the Stochastic Process, the Fluxions, the Burning House, the Phantom Captain, the Decline of the West, the Duelists, the Call of the Wild, Consciousness III, the Reorganized Church of the Latter-Day Saints, Standard Oil of Ohio, the Zig-Zag Men, the Rubble Risers, the Children of Ra, TNT, Acceptable Radiation, the Pollution Level, the Great Beast, the Whores of Babylon, the Waste Land, the Ugly Truth, the Final Diagnosis, Solution Unsatisfactory, the Heat Death of the Universe, Mere Noise, I Opening, the Nine Unknown Men, the Horse of Another Color, the Falling Rock Zone, the Ascent of the Serpent, Reddy Willing and Unable, the Civic Monster, Hercules and the Tortoise, the Middle Pillar, the Deleted Expletive, Deep Quote, LuCiFeR, the Dog Star, Nuthin' Sirius, and Preparation H.
A system in which events occur according to a law of probability but aren't individually determined in accordance with the principle of causality is a stochastic system.
Players of Null-A, the Prelude to Space, Thunder and Roses, Armageddon, the Time Machine, the Mason' Word, the Monkey Business, the Works, the Eight of Swords, Gorilla Warfare, the Box Lunch, the Primate Kingdom, the New Aeon, the Enola Gay, the Octet Truss, the Stochastic Process, the Fluxions, the Burning House, the Phantom Captain, the Decline of the West, the Duelists, the Call of the Wild, Consciousness III, the Reorganized Church of the Latter-Day Saints, Standard Oil of Ohio, the Zig-Zag Men, the Rubble Risers, the Children of Ra, TNT, Acceptable Radiation, the Pollution Level, the Great Beast, the Whores of Babylon, the Waste Land, the Ugly Truth, the Final Diagnosis, Solution Unsatisfactory, the Heat Death of the Universe, Mere Noise, I Opening, the Nine .