Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Bit late, aren't you?
A writer for a magazine about math has just now sussed out the fact that the Goldman Coup of 2008 was assisted by lots of physics majors. This fact was widely discussed in 2008 and ever since, but I suppose some people are slow on the pickup.
Slow-thinking author asks why physics, and concludes:
The finance industry loves people who can learn a lot of maths very quickly, and quick mathematical response is what Laura was providing in her time on the trading floor as a quantitative analyst (or quant). "I was working with traders and building tools for valuation and risk management," she explains. "It was very exciting. I moved from an academic environment, where I'd have weeks, months, years even, to come up with solutions, to one in which solutions were required in days, hours, or minutes." But mathematical fluency isn't the only thing that makes physicists attractive. "The specific training in theoretical physics is very similar to what people do as quants," says David Berman ... A physicist's job is to spot patterns in the information reality presents us with and then come up with ways of describing the important relationships, conceptually and mathematically.Well, yes, but lots of other disciplines are good at math and good at observing reality. Why didn't they primarily hire chemists or civil engineers or biologists or pharmaceutical researchers? Why are physicists best suited for finance? Easy. Physicists observe fake reality and are comfortable with scams and frauds (dark matter, string theory, multiverses, quantum crap, Higgs Bosons), and are historically comfortable with creating weapons that kill millions of civilians. Those other disciplines are more accustomed to dealing with real reality, i.e. THINGS that help people live their lives. ¶ 2:18 AM
