The Physics of Wall Street: A Brief History of Predicting the Unpredictable

After the economic meltdown of 2008, many pundits placed the blame on "complex financial instruments" and the physicists and mathematicians who dreamed them up. But how is it that physicists came to drive Wall Street? And were their ideas really the cause of the collapse? In "The Physics of Wall Str [...]
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After the economic meltdown of 2008, many pundits placed the blame on "complex financial instruments" and the physicists and mathematicians who dreamed them up. But how is it that physicists came to drive Wall Street? And were their ideas really the cause of the collapse? In "The Physics of Wall Street, " physicist James Weatherall answers both these questions. He tells the story of how physicists first moved to finance, bringing science to bear on some of the thorniest problems in economics, from bubbles to options pricing. But models have limitations and can break down in the hands of those who either don't understand their purpose or don't care, which is exactly what happened on Wall Street. However, Weatherall argues that the solution is not to give up on the models, but to make them better.