The hazard function, often denoted as $h(t)$, is a crucial concept in survival analysis and reliability engineering that describes the instantaneous failure rate at a given time point. It reflects the likelihood of failure occurring in the next instant, given that the object or subject has survived up to that time. This function is essential for understanding the behavior of failure times and is directly linked to distributions of failure times, making it vital for estimating reliability and conducting reliability testing.
congrats on reading the definition of Hazard Function. now let's actually learn it.