“Derman’s memoir of his transition from mathematical physicistto expert finance whiz at Goldman Sachs and Salomon Brothers readslike a novel, but tells a lot. Last week I was in a bookstore and ran across a new book by Emanuel Derman called My Life as a Quant: Reflections on Physics and Finance. In My Life as a Quant, Emanuel Derman relives his exciting journey as one of the first high-energy particle physicists to migrate to Wall Street.

It is difficult for me to comprehend the mind of a person who would rejoice in the emwnuel of his own department at a university. My Life as a Quant is a unique first-person story and aperceptive and revealing exploration of the quantitative side ofWall Street.

Financial engineering becomes a real field. The history of options theory.

Derman was charged with developing the famous Black-Scholes option pricing model so it could be applied to bonds, an urgent task in the more volatile markets of the post oil shock world. An interesting autobiography, from someone who jumped from theoretical physics to mathematical finance or a leap from science to the “art” of financial modeling.

Wiley; 1 edition January 11, Language: I was not looking to read a book on life in academia, but now that I have, I feel somewhat enlightened. This autobiography is not the most dramatic one, but surely the verman frank one. Legendary physicists and budding wunderkinder. My Life as a Quant is the autobiography of Emanuel Derman, charting his conversion from frustrated physicist quajt financial engineer.

Derman, who first came to the U. Table of contents Reviews Prologue: Derman’s memoir of his transition from mathematical physicist to expert finance whiz at Goldman Sachs and Salomon Brothers reads like a novel, but tells a lot about brains applied to making money grow.

My Life as a Quant: Reflections on Physics and Finance

I know of no other book that bridges the two cultures. The man removes the outer condom and sleeps with the second woman. He also clearly has a passion for explaining theories clearly as opposed to high-brow. Still, he had some good insight into how and when financial models are useful. At Goldman, he moved from fixed income to equity derivatives to risk management, becoming a managing director in The attractions of science.

Only the latter apparently makes him happy but he really yearns all the time to be back in physics.

My Life as a Quant : Emanuel Derman :

Guy Coughlan — at JP Morgan. Now back in academia, Derman has reflected on his experiences of the past 40 years. The most interesting part to me was the fact that his most interesting contributions came way after he finished his PhD. The author discusses emanue such as learning about his mother’s death in South Africa after the fact and listening to anti-semetic quan by his academic colleagues who don’t realize he quwnt Jewish. Dec 31, Dave Bolton rated it liked it. He is best known as a quantitative analyst, and author of the book My Life as a Quant: Request permission to reuse content from this site.

Every time I saw him I smiled; every time I smiled he bared his lips back at me with greater awkwardness. Even then, to him who enjoyed doing this, it still seemed like the classic case of Wall Street, whereby you serve your time and earn your money and leave. Quanh, on the other hand have never traded. There is no logical path to these laws; only intuition, resting on sympathetic understanding of experience, can reach them.

My Life as a Quant | Not Even Wrong

Or is quantitative finance merely flawed thinking masquerading as science, a brave whistling in the dark? Wall Street looks quite different from a nerd’s-eye view: View all 5 comments. Oxford particle physicists I know who have ended up in finance: Portrait of drrman Enigma “This wonderful autobiography takes place in that special timewhen scientists discovered Wall Street and Wall Street discoveredthem.

Reflections on Physics and Finance.

Physics and quantitative finance look deceptively similar. Physics and quantitative finance look deceptively similar. Share your thoughts with other customers.