Ely Merzbach

Professor Ely Merzbach is an international research on Probability theory and Stochastic Processes and a member of the mathematics department and Gonda Brain Research Center at Bar-Ilan University. Professor Merzbach research focused on Set-Indexed stochastic processes, Levy processes, Fractional Poisson processes and spans numerous topics underlying important applications in areas spanning Brain Research, financial systems, Bio Systems, Complex and stochastic systems, Environmental and other systems.   

 

 He served as Dean of the Faculty of Science of Bar-Ilan University.

Professor Merzbach is also involved with connections between Science and Jewish philosophy. He wrote 40 papers on this subject and several books in hebrew, for example "The Logic of the Lottery", Reuven Mass, Ltd., 208pp. (2009).

 

Issue: 6:2 (The twenty second issue)

There are many phenomena in the Bible connected to the idea of
the random, generally in a positive light, but sometimes in a negative one.
Both in the Talmudic literature and in the Halakhah texts, the hazal (the
Sages) also relate to random processes. As we will see here, for them every
chance event has a clear meaning, usually even a holy one. In fact, every
culture in the world relates to randomness. However, from the Greek
philosophers until the rationalism of the 19th century, a process of denuding
randomness of its holiness has been taking place. In Judaism, a lottery is
not a blind process; moreover the randomness has a clear and profound
theological meaning.