A Markov chain, named for Andrey Markov,
is a mathematical system that undergoes transitions from one state to
another (from a finite or countable number of possible states) in a chainlike manner. It is a random process characterized as memoryless:
the next state depends only on the current state and not on the
sequence of events that preceded it. This specific kind of
"memorylessness" is called the Markov property. Markov chains have many applications as statistical models of real-world processes.