ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Galton–Watson process

A Galton–Watson process is like a game. At the start of the game, you have one person. That person has a certain number of children and each of those children can have a certain number of children, and so on down the tree. The game ends when there are no more children. The point of the game is to figure out how many people there will be at the end of the game.