--to last week's stochastic, but I was just re-reading the def. and was struck with inspiration (or something) when I saw the word probabilistic. I was reminded of that contest (by the Washington Post?) where people submit "words" made up to fit funny definitions. And I thought that a word for someone who's likely to lose his temper easily would be probaballistic.
It's quite probable that I actually saw this word somewhere; and if someone points that out, I promise I won't go ballistic.

Hello!

I do not recall seeing your neologism, but I see and use stochastic almost daily. Many people are confused about and skeptical or fearful of stochastic processes - confusing the redundant term "random chance" with the unrelated concept of "chaos." (And mathematical chaos is not related to the common conception of the word.)

Stochastic (random) processes can be regular - and patterns emerge, otherwise there would no benefit of studying probability and statistics. If you roll a six-sided die many times, and each number appears near the same number of times, then the die might be a fair one. If you get mostly 1s then the die is probably not fair. But if you roll a fair, normal die it will not come up "peanut butter" or "elephant" or "blue". Contrary to what is commonly believed, "stochastic" does not mean "unconstrained."

Also the law of large numbers is quite dependable. Casinos can thrive with an advantage of just a fraction of a percent.

Though the terms are completely unrelated in meaning as well as etymology (as far as I know) I always think of the word "stoichiometry" when I see "stochastic."

stoichiometry Eh? Whazzat, please?

Quantitative relationships and proportions in chemical compounds and reactions. That's a simplified version.

Salman Khan explains it pretty well:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjQG3rKSZUQ

Remember back many years ago when you took HS Chemistry?

Way back when you took HS Chemistry, your teacher may have described a particular reaction to you and then asked you questions like, "When X and Y are combined to produce Z, how many grams of Y are required to produce a certain amount of Z?"

Ah. Thanks, both of you. [hugs]