The goal of this book is simple: We would like to show how mortality dynamics can be visualized in the so-called Lexis diagram. To appeal to as many potential
readers as possible, we do not require any specialist knowledge. This approach
may be disappointing: Demographers may have liked more information about
the mathematical underpinnings of population dynamics on the Lexis surface as
demonstrated, for instance, by Arthur and Vaupel in 1984. Statisticians would have
probably preferred more information about the underlying smoothing methods that
were used. Epidemiologists likewise might miss discussions about the etiology of
diseases. Sociologists would have probably expected that our results were more
embedded into theoretical frameworks....