This is not a Fish

You might think this blog is about fish. I wouldn't blame you, but it isn't. No the 'Poisson' in the title is a reference to a French mathematician, Siméon Denis Poisson, who lends his name to the Poisson Process.

I confess, I don't really understand the Poisson Process or much else of the various mathematical concepts for which he is known, but from what I have gathered, it seems an appropriate title for what I'd like this blog to be about.

I stumbled across Poisson while searching for synonyms or concepts related to renewal.  I wanted to leave my old blog behind; I feel vaguely embarrassed by it, by which, perhaps, I mean vulnerable, especially about the level of personal disclosure.  Part of me appreciates that personal disclosure is very much a part of blogging, but I guess I'd reached the point where I felt it was potentially damaging to my prospects.

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I'm doing the worse kind of thing and cherry-picking ideas from the explanations of the Poisson Process I've read on the internet:

...a process in which points occur randomly in time.

...the random process has a strong renewal property.

It's the idea that what has gone on before the point in time is independent of what comes after it that's the appeal here. The embrace of the random will probably reflect my posting frequency too.

I also liked this sentence:

The process has a beautiful mathematical structure, and is used as a foundation for building a number of other, more complicated random processes.

I read this, however imprecisely, as a metaphor, that by undertaking this task of renewal then, eventually, I'll be able to build towards finishing my PhD thesis. The use of 'beautiful' conveys an enthusiasm for a subject that I admire.

Welcome to The Poisson Project