Probability Essentials

We present here a one semester course on Probability Theory. Many Probability texts available today are celebrations of Probability Theory, containing treatments of fascinating topics to be sure, but nevertheless they make it difficult to construct a lean one semester course that covers (what we believe) are the essential topics. This introduction to Probability Theory can be used, at the beginning graduate level, for a one-semester course on Probability Theory or for self-direction without benefit of a formal course; the measure theory needed is developed in the text. It will also be useful for students and teachers in related areas such as Finance Theory (Economics), Electrical Engineering, and Operations Research. The text covers the essentials in a directed and lean way with 28 short chapters. Assuming of readers only an undergraduate background in mathematics, it brings them from a starting knowledge of the subject to a knowledge of the basics of Martingale Theory. After learning Probability Theory from this text, the interested student will be ready to continue with the study of more advanced topics, such as Brownian Motion and Ito Calculus, or Statistical Inference. The second edition contains some additions to the text and to the references and some parts are completely rewritten.