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

作者：JamesOwenWeatherall

出版社：HoughtonMifflinHarcourt

副标题：ABriefHistoryofPredictingtheUnpredictable

出版年：2013-1-2

页数：304

定价：USD27.00

装帧：Hardcover

ISBN：9780547317274

内容简介
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After the economic meltdown of 2008, Warren Buffett famously warned, “beware of geeks bearing formulas.” But as James Weatherall demonstrates, not all geeks are created equal. While many of the mathematicians and software engineers on Wall Street failed when their abstractions turned ugly in practice, a special breed of physicists has a much deeper history of revolutionizing finance. Taking us from fin-de-siècle Paris to Rat Pack-era Las Vegas, from wartime government labs to Yippie communes on the Pacific coast, Weatherall shows how physicists successfully brought their science to bear on some of the thorniest problems in economics, from options pricing to bubbles.

The crisis was partly a failure of mathematical modeling. But even more, it was a failure of some very sophisticated financial institutions to think like physicists. 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, however, is not to give up on models; it's to make them better. Weatherall reveals the people and ideas on the cusp of a new era in finance. We see a geophysicist use a model designed for earthquakes to predict a massive stock market crash. We discover a physicist-run hedge fund that earned 2,478.6% over the course of the 1990s. And we see how an obscure idea from quantum theory might soon be used to create a far more accurate Consumer Price Index.

Both persuasive and accessible, The Physics of Wall Street is riveting history that will change how we think about our economic future.

作者简介
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物理学家、数学家与哲学家。加州大学欧文分校助理教授。

拥有哈佛大学物理硕士学位、斯蒂文斯理工学院物理及数学博士学位以及加州大学欧文分校哲学博士学位。

著名科技杂志《科学美国人》、美国知名网络杂志slate撰稿人。

评论 ······

最后epilogue里夹带私货有点多，对于物理学在金融领域应用的批评的反驳比较老套

The author himself has no experience in the finance industry so really there is nothing new in the book.

需要复习概率论。又扯上巴菲特了。科学（尤其物理学）是分析解释客观世界的工具，理论（数学）推导，实验反复验证的学问。经济学分析客观世界和人的主动选择,研究互动，侧重于人的价值选择。当华尔街用尽经济学提供的工具，物理学（数学）不失为一种附加工具，在竞争中有一定的优势。如果大家都用上，就没有优势可言。何况市场终究取决于人的价值取向，物理学对此注定无能为力。学物理不赚钱，难出成绩，这才是作者最在乎的问题。…

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