Models. Behaving. Badly.

Emanuel Derman worked as a quantitative analyst at Goldman Sachs, one of the financial engineers whose computer models supplanted Wall Street traders intuition. The 2008 economic crisis was triggered by the dependence of traders on quantitative analysis. Using mathematical language to approximate the manner of physics, these models deal with people, which hides their underlying contrast with the goals and probable outcomes in psychological and financial worlds. When we construct a human-scale replica, we're attempting to push Cinderellas ugly stepsisters foot into Cinderellas lovely glass slipper.