Ronald Meester

This book is the first systematic and rigorous account of continuum percolation. The authors treat two models, the Boolean model and the random connection model, in detail and discuss a number of related continuum models. Where appropriate, they make clear connections between discrete percolation and continuum percolation. All important techniques and methods are explained and applied to obtain results on the existence of phase transitions, equality of certain critical densities, continuity of critical densities with respect to distributions, uniqueness of the unbounded component, covered volume fractions, compression, rarefaction, and so on. The book is self-contained, assuming familiarity only with measure theory and basic probability theory. The approach makes use of simple ergodic theory, but the underlying geometric ideas are always made clear. Continuum Percolation will appeal to students and researchers in probability and stochastic geometry.

"The book [is] an excellent new introductory text on probability. The classical way of teaching probability is based on measure theory. In this book discrete and continuous probability are studied with mathematical precision, within the realm of Riemann integration and not using notions from measure theory…. Numerous topics are discussed, such as: random walks, weak laws of large numbers, infinitely many repetitions, strong laws of large numbers, branching processes, weak convergence and [the] central limit theorem. The theory is illustrated with many original and surprising examples and problems." Zentralblatt Math "Most textbooks designed for a one-year course in mathematical statistics cover probability in the first few chapters as preparation for the statistics to come. This book in some ways resembles the first part of such textbooks: it's all probability, no statistics. But it does the probability more fully than usual, spending lots of time on motivation, explanation, and rigorous development of the mathematics…. The exposition is usually clear and eloquent…. Overall, this is a five-star book on probability that could be used as a textbook or as a supplement." MAA online