Columns, The Wilmott Magazine, Quantitative Finance

Quant Talent Management

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How to retain quant talent? Published in the Wilmott Magazine, March 2008.

The trouble with quants is that it is hard to keep them anchored to their moorings. Their talent is in high demand for a variety of reasons. The primary reason is the increasing sophistication of the banking clients, who demand increasingly more structured products with specific hedging and speculative motives. Servicing their demand calls for a small army of quants supporting the trading desks and systems. […]

The Wilmott Magazine, Quantitative Finance, Columns

Benford and Your Taxes

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This article that appeared in the Jan 2008 issue of the Wilmott Magazine explores the fascinating numerical phenomenal of the first digits in real-life numbers.

[…] The calculated creativity in tax returns seldom pays off. Your calculations of expected pain and suffering are never consistent with the frequency with which IRS audits you. The probability of an audit is, in fact, much higher if you try to inflate your tax deductions. You can blame Benford for this skew in probability stacked against your favor. […]

Debates, SFN - Science Forums, Physics

Tsunami

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The Asian Tsunami two and a half years ago unleashed tremendous amount energy on the coastal regions around the Indian ocean. What do you think would’ve have happened to this energy if there had been no water to carry it away from the earthquake?

Columns, The Wilmott Magazine, Quantitative Finance

Quant Life in Singapore

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5 of 12 in Popular

A whacky look at the life of a quant in Singapore. Published in the Wilmott Magazine in Nov 2007.

[…] Among the highly skilled workforce are scattered a hundred or so typically timid and self-effacing souls with bulging foreheads and dreamy eyes behind thick glasses. They are the Singaporean quants, and this short article is their story. […]

Creative, Work and Life

And the Wind Whispered…

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This post is my translation of an excellent short story by one of the most gifted storytellers of our time, O.V.Vijayan. The translation from Malayalam is a feeble effort, because such distant translations are not merely between languages, but cultures. Enjoy!

SFN - Science Forums, Physics, Debates

Universe – Size and Age

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I posted this question that was bothering me when I read that they found a galaxy at about 13 billion light years away. My understanding of that statement is: At distance of 13 billion light years, there was a galaxy 13 billion years ago, so that we can see the light from it now. Wouldn’t that mean that the universe is at least 26 billion years old? It must have taken the galaxy about 13 billion years to reach where it appears to be, and the light from it must take another 13 billion years to reach us.

Anti-Relativity, Philosophy, Physics, Debates

Unreal Time

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Another discussion from an on-line forum, this post looks at space and time. […]The first question we need to ask ourselves is why space and time seem coupled? The answer is actually too simple to spot, and it is in your definition of time. Space and time mix through our concept of velocity and our brain’s ability to sense motion. There is an even deeper connection, which is that space is a cognitive representation of the photons inputs to our eyes, but we will get to it later.[…]

Physics, Debates, Anti-Relativity, Philosophy

Anti-relativity and Superluminality

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A discussion on the meaning and interpretation of Special Relativity. The perceptual effects are known in physics; they are called Light Travel Time effects (LTT, to cook up an acronym). These effects are considered an optical illusion on the motion of the object under observation. Once you take out the LTT effects, you get the “real” motion of the object . This real motion is supposed to obey SR. This is the current interpretation of SR. My argument is that the LTT effects are so similar to SR that we should think of SR as just a formalization of LTT. (In fact, a slightly erroneous formalization.)

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