Tomorrow Quant Archive — Foreword
I have always wondered about what I would say, do and present if I ever got my five minutes of fame. Depending on the occasion, I might be thrust into a role without warning, or given the chance to speak my mind freely before a vast audience. My honest guess is that it would end in a complete freeze and a blurted, half-formed address to human hope. Given the chance to step out of the spotlight — and to put out a script instead — I shall take it. I shall write my mind clearly.
I thought long and hard about how to address you all. Those of you who have come across my work on IMC Prosperity will know I have attempted to entertain you a little. I considered carrying that same tone here, but I believe it would fall short of the scope and theme I am trying to present. Those who have read through my previous work on quantitative finance — scattered at best and a complete mess at worst — will perhaps recognise the tone a bit more. Like many others, I have found the introductions to Statistical Mechanics wonderfully funny, and the mannerisms of aging, wise physicists have always roamed my mind. I went back and forth for a long time: do I address you all with fun, cheer and humour, or with the serious demeanour this topic arguably deserves? I have been told I make one egg into six chickens at times, so forgive me for going on — and on.
I considered opening with humour, followed by a simple “here you can read X, Y and Z.” But I doubted myself. Was that the proper way to address everyone from high schoolers to executives? I then thought I should be more serious — textbook-introduction serious. Something like: “Jim Simons discovered and invented algorithmic trading in 1980. He is a mad lad with exceptional skill in code-breaking.” I write that to make fun of the tone I could adopt, not to endorse it. That tone did not represent the seriousness, passion and dedication I feel for this subject. Worse still, it would not actually address what matters here.
What I would love is to invite everyone — anyone — into the absolute wonder that quantitative finance is. Jim Simons was a mathematician who worked on problems core to physics. Paul Wilmott was a physicist. David E. Shaw was a physicist and computer scientist. It should be plain that quant finance overlaps mathematics, physics and computer science. It draws on game theory, evolutionary dynamics, artificial intelligence and more. It is my sincerest belief that the core problem inside quantitative finance is the same core problem in physics and mathematics alike. Cracking it — truly, deeply — could illuminate the others as well. It comes as no surprise to me how many quants find themselves wandering through fluid dynamics, numerical approximations, partial differential equations, earthquake forecasting, quantum mechanics, probability theory and wave functions.
We are, all of us, simply scientists — each with our own expertise — studying money as though it were a natural phenomenon. In some sense, it is. It arises from the complexity of human society and human psychology. A wonderful thing to look into, if you have not already, is the study of memetics: how ideas, behaviours and cultural elements spread and evolve within a society, much as viruses do. “Buy low, sell high” propagates through populations in a strikingly similar way.
And so we have done the long walk for a short drink of water. In the end, I realised something. If I were ever to address the vast sweep of human society — my five minutes of fame before all of humanity, for all eternity — it would not much matter what I said. Because the only person I should ever truly address is myself. All my life I have tried to find someone who could look at the vast and wonderful complexity of reality and see it the way I do. I have tried my hardest to compress oceans into a glass of water.
I am not smarter, better, prettier or stronger than most. I am shorter than most men. I am scarred across my skin. I am very frequently a complete idiot. My attempts to share the beauty I see in the world have failed at nearly every turn. Loneliness and deep chaos have been my oldest companions — which is why the song I relate to most is Nothing Arrived, and the story I carry closest is The Stars Do Not Wait for You. Very early on in life, chaos came for me, and it has persisted ever since. I have lived a life of relentless, sustained trauma. And even so, I have managed to get a solid footing in quantitative finance. And for some reason, a good number of you have decided to read this.
So here is my final decision. If I could compress the universe into a glass of water and hand it to you, this is what it would contain: You will be alright. Come hell or high water, you will be alright. Even when you have sunk to the bottom of the ocean, you will still be alright. I hope you embark on a wonderful journey. When it feels impossible, come and find me. I will always be here.
These words were not chosen because they are professional, powerful or deeply intellectual. They were chosen because they are the words I believe most likely to give you what I was never given — and had to make for myself. Hope.
