For background, need only some routine calculus and the most elementary probability theory. The chapter on the Poisson process, early in the book, is nice to a

For background, need only some routine calculus and the most elementary probability theory. The chapter on the Poisson process, early in the book, is nice to amazing, e.g., his axiomatic derivation. You should be able to get the main ideas in 1-2 evenings of fun, pleasant reading. Science is awash in Poisson processes; it is nice to understand more about them. That they have no memory seems to me like maybe a thin thread could pull to say some things about what is going on in the internals of some of those cases of Poisson processes. I.e., you are looking at some system with some unknown internals, some working mechanism, but the evidence is that it has no memory. The system has some internal state but no memory? How can that be? So, we have some possibly severe limitations on how the internals work. Now I'm concentrating mostly on my startup and deliberately setting aside pursuing such questions -- maybe later. But you, maybe in chemistry, quantum lifetimes, time until a nucleus splits, ..., glitches in complicated computer systems, .... Similarly for the other chapters. If you take the book fully seriously, e.g., carefully follow all the proofs and work most of the exercises, it's a good one semester course.