Alfred J. Lotka was a very smart man who lived a long time ago. He was interested in lots of things, but one thing he was really good at was math. He used math to study populations of things like animals, plants, and even people.
You know how you have lots of toys? Well, imagine if there were lots and lots of people and they were sharing toys. Alfred J. Lotka wanted to figure out how those people would share the toys so everyone could be happy.
He made some math equations called Lotka-Volterra equations, which helped him understand how populations of things would change over time. He found out that if there were too many people sharing toys, the toys would run out and there would be fights. But if there were not enough people, some would get bored and leave.
Alfred J. Lotka's work helped other people understand how populations of things change over time too. He was really important in the field of science and math.