Journal of the Australian Mathematical Society

Table of Contents - 1971 - Volume 12, Issue 04  

Research Article

On the times of births in a linear birthprocess

Marcel F. Neutsa1 and Sidney I. Resnicka2

a1 Cornell University

a2 Purdue University

Abstract

If S1, S2,… are the times of successive births in a pure birth-process with linear birthrate and i > 0 individuals initially, then given that there are k > 0 births in (0, t), the random variables eλS1—1, eλS2−1,λS1−1 are distributed (conditionally) like the order statistics of k independent random variables, all uniformly distributed on the interval (0, eλt–1), regardless of the initial population size. A similar property holds for the pure death process.

(Received April 14 1969)