It seemed to make sense, naming stochastic processes after what must be something like a game of Fives or Jacks
So much teaching of statistics begins with tossing dice
Except it was wrong information. Stochastic comes from the Greek to aim, to guess. Stragalos is the word for knucklebone
All societies have indulged in gambling games, using bones or other objects as primitive 'dice'. In fact, the word stochastic which mathematicians use to describe sequences of chance events derives from the Greek word for knucklebone
Professor John Barrow (University of Sussex) Guardian Online 1995
Link: Jack Stones By Dan Beard
