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Description of The (Mis)behaviour of Markets

Fractal geometry is the mathematics of roughness: how to reduce the outline of a jagged leaf, a rocky coastline or a static in a computer connection to a few simple mathematical properties - to make the complex simple. With his fractal tools, Benoit Mandelbrot has got to the bottom of how financial markets really work. He finds they have a shifting sense of time, a unique dimension and a wild kind of behaviour that makes them volatile, dangerous - and also beautiful. In Mandelbrot's fractal models, the complex gyrations of IBM's stock price, the FTSE 100 cotton trading and exchange rates can be reduced to straightforward formulae that yield a much more accurate description of the risks involved.

Title Information

ISBN:

9781861977908

Pages:

288 pages

Format:

Paperback

Product Code:

23179

Publisher:

Profile Books

Published:

21/07/2005

Press and Industry Reviews

"Surprisingly entertaining … As the founder of fractal geometry and the discoverer of the Mandelbrot set Mandelbrot is acknowledged as the father of chaos theory … he is, simply, very clever indeed."
- Martin Baker, Sunday Telegraph

"The reader gets a clear picture of the history of finance theory … the best financial read since Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Fooled by Randomness."
- Philip Coggan, Financial Times

"Entertainingly written ... this book is a brain-opener that adds hugely to our sum of knowledge."
- Director

"One of the 20th century's most celebrated mathematicians … devastating analysis."
- Financial Times

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About Benoit Mandelbrot and Richard Hudson

Benoit Mandelbrot is Professor of Mathematical Sciences at Yale University. He is the inventor of fractal geometry, he was a leading figure in James Gleick's Chaos and has received the Wolf Prize in Physics, the Japan Prize in science and technology and numerous other awards. Richard Hudson is the former managing editor of Wall Street Journal Europe