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SUMMARY:What makes econophysics distinctive? - James Weatherall (Universit
 y of California\, Irvine)
DTSTART:20161116T130000Z
DTEND:20161116T143000Z
UID:TALK68136@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:31287
DESCRIPTION:There is a long history of ideas (and people) moving from fiel
 ds such \nas physics and mathematics into finance.  In the past\, the idea
 s and \nmethods of physicists have been rapidly integrated into economic \
 nthought.  Beginning around 1990\, however\, a new movement of physicists 
 \nattempting to apply methods from statistical physics to economic \nprobl
 ems began.  Strangely\, this time the ideas from physics have not \nbeen w
 idely adopted or integrated into mainstream economics.  Instead\, a \nnew\
 , largely autonomous field of "econophysics" has appeared\, in which \npeo
 ple trained mostly in physics or by physicists work on problems of \necono
 mics.  In this talk\, I will explore some of the reasons for the \nappeara
 nce of this new field.  Ultimately I will argue that what make \neconophys
 ics distinctive -- both from economics\, and from past attempts \nto impor
 t ideas from physics -- is that econophysicists seem to \nrecognize\, and 
 attempt to meet\, an explanatory demand that economists \nreject\, concern
 ing the relationship between models of individual actors \nand market-leve
 l and economy-level models.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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