
Lecture 1
Duration of life as a random
variable
Duration of life of an individual person, and that is the subject of our
book, is considered in mathematical demography as a random variable.
This, of course, is not the only possible point of view on duration
of human life. There is something simplistic and vulgar in such a point
of view. In M. Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita (see English
translation Bulgakov [1992]), in a dialog between Pontius Pilate and
Yeshua, there is the following passage:
“What would you have me to swear by?” enquired the unbound
prisoner with great urgency.
“Well, by your life,” replied the Procurator. “It is high time to swear ...