Quants, physicists working on Wall Street as quantitative analysts, have been widely blamed for triggering the recent financial crisis with their complex mathematical models. What made these models, employed to minimize financial risk, so dangerous? In this penetrating, insider's look at the recent economic collapse, Emanuel Derman--former head quant at Goldman Sachs and a former physicist--explains the collision between mathematical modeling and economics that has touched every one of us. Though financial models imitate the style of physics and employ the language of mathematics, there is a… (more)