Schroedinger’s Cash Register

Borrowing techniques from statistical mechanics, quantum theory, and particle physics, researchers are trying to divine undiscovered laws of finance.

Bouchaud, J.-P., and M. Potters. Preprint. Worse fluctuation method for fast Value-at-Risk estimates. Available at http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/cond-mat/9909245.

Gopikrishman, P. . . . and H.E. Stanley. 1998. Inverse cubic law for the distribution of stock price variations. European Physical Journal B 3:139.

Mantegna, R.N., and H.E. Stanley. 1999. An Introduction to Econophysics. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Boss, T.A. 1999. Black box—What happens when maverick physicists in New Mexico set out to predict the markets? New Yorker (April 26):115.

Bouchaud, J.-P. . . . and M. Potters. 1999. Mutual attractions: Physics and finance. Physics World (January):25.

Farmer, J.D. 1999. Physicists attempt to scale the ivory towers of finance. Computing in Science & Engineering 1(November/December):26.

Additional information can be found at the Econophysics Forum Web site at http://www.unifr.ch/econophysics/.

Jonathan Berk
University of California, Berkeley
Haas School of Business
545 Student Services Building
Berkeley, CA 94720-1900

Jean-Philippe Bouchaud
Science & Finance
109-111 rue Victor Hugo
92532 Levallois Cedex
France

Blake LeBaron
Brandeis University
Graduate School of International Economics and Finance
Mailstop Code 021
Waltham, MA 02453-2728

Andrew Lo
School of Management
E-52-437
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, MA 02139

H. Eugene Stanley
Boston University
Center for Polymer Studies
Department of Physics
Boston, MA 02215

From Science News, Vol. 156, No. 22, November 27, 1999, p. 344. Copyright © 1999, Science Service.