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Title details for The Physics of Finance by James Owen Weatherall - Available

The Physics of Finance

by James Owen Weatherall
ebook
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A book which reveals the people and ideas on the cusp of a new era in finance... After the economic meltdown of 2008, many pundits placed the blame on "complex financial instruments" like derivatives, and the physicists and mathematicians who dreamed them up. But a young academic named James Owen Weatherall quickly began to question this narrative. Were the physicists really at fault? In this important and engaging book, Weatherall tells the story of how physicists came to Wall Street and how their ideas changed finance forever. Taking us from fin-de-siècle Paris to Rat Pack-era Las Vegas, from wartime government labs to Yippie communes, he shows how physicists successfully brought their science to bear on some of the thorniest problems in economics, from options pricing to bubbles. The trouble is that models—whether in science or finance—have limitations; they break down under certain conditions. And in 2008, sophisticated models fell into the hands of people who didn’t understand their purpose, and didn’t care. It was a catastrophic misuse of science. The solution, Weatherall argues in this brilliantly entertaining book, is not to give up on models; it is to simply make them better.
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Publisher: Short Books

OverDrive Read

  • ISBN: 9781780721408
  • Release date: February 7, 2013

EPUB ebook

  • ISBN: 9781780721408
  • File size: 1097 KB
  • Release date: February 7, 2013

Formats

OverDrive Read
EPUB ebook

subjects

Business Science Management Nonfiction

Languages

English

A book which reveals the people and ideas on the cusp of a new era in finance... After the economic meltdown of 2008, many pundits placed the blame on "complex financial instruments" like derivatives, and the physicists and mathematicians who dreamed them up. But a young academic named James Owen Weatherall quickly began to question this narrative. Were the physicists really at fault? In this important and engaging book, Weatherall tells the story of how physicists came to Wall Street and how their ideas changed finance forever. Taking us from fin-de-siècle Paris to Rat Pack-era Las Vegas, from wartime government labs to Yippie communes, he shows how physicists successfully brought their science to bear on some of the thorniest problems in economics, from options pricing to bubbles. The trouble is that models—whether in science or finance—have limitations; they break down under certain conditions. And in 2008, sophisticated models fell into the hands of people who didn’t understand their purpose, and didn’t care. It was a catastrophic misuse of science. The solution, Weatherall argues in this brilliantly entertaining book, is not to give up on models; it is to simply make them better.
Expand title description text
Business Science Management Nonfiction