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After the economic meltdown of 2008, Warren Buffett famously warned, "beware of geeks bearing formulas." But as Wayne Weatherall demonstrates, not all geeks are manufactured equal. While many of the mathematicians and software engineers on Wall Streets failed when their abstractions turned ugly used, a special breed of physicists has a much deeper background of revolutionizing fund. Taking us from fin-de-siècle Paris to Rat Pack-era NEVADA, from wartime authorities labs to Yippie communes on the Pacific seacoast, Weatherall shows how physicists effectively brought their technology to keep on some of the thorniest problems in economics, from options costs to bubbles. The turmoil was partly failing of mathematical modeling. But even more, it was failing of some very sophisticated financial institutions to believe like physicists. Models-whether in technology or finance-have limitations; they break down under certain conditions. And in 2008, sophisticated models fell into the hands of men and women who didn't understand their purpose, and didn't care and attention. It had been a catastrophic misuse of technology. The perfect solution is, however, is never to give up on models; it's to make sure they are better. Weatherall uncovers the people and ideas on the cusp of a fresh era in fund. We see a geophysicist use a model designed for earthquakes to forecast a massive currency markets crash. We locate a physicist-run hedge fund that received 2,478.6% during the period of the 1990s. And we see how an obscure idea from quantum theory might soon be utilized to make a far more exact Consumer Price Index. Both persuasive and accessible, The Physics of Wall Streets is riveting background that changes how exactly we think about our economic future.

Category: Mathematical Physics

Details

Publisher	Tantor Audio
Language	English
ISBN
DATE	2013-03
Author	James Owen Weatherall

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