Stochastic

Stochastic (/stəˈkæstɪk/; from Ancient Greek στόχος (stókhos) 'aim, guess')[1] refers to the property of being well described by a random probability distribution.[1] Although stochasticity and randomness are distinct in that the former refers to a modeling approach and the latter refers to phenomena themselves, these two terms are often used synonymously. Furthermore, in probability theory, the formal concept of a stochastic process is also referred to as a random process.[2][3][4][5][6]

Stochasticity is used in many different fields, including the natural sciences such as biology,[7] chemistry,[8] ecology,[9] neuroscience,[10] and physics,[11] as well as technology and engineering fields such as image processing, signal processing,[12] information theory,[13] computer science,[14] cryptography,[15] and telecommunications.[16] It is also used in finance, due to seemingly random changes in financial markets[17][18][19] as well as in medicine, linguistics, music, media, colour theory, botany, manufacturing, and geomorphology.