The Misbehavior of Markets: A Fractal View of Financial Turbulence
Benoit Mandelbrot was one of the great innovators of the twentieth century and will be forever linked with the science he named, fractal geometry. Fractals pop up all over the place, but one place that they can be found is in economic data. Could you use this insight to make money?
Judging by this book, Mandelbrot had already had that thought. And judging by this book, the answer is no.
I love Mandelbrot’s work but I’d be the first to admit that it isn’t always easy to read. It isn’t that Mandelbrot can’t write, though you have remember he wasn’t a writer but a mathematician. It is just that a lot of the things he covers are just intrinsically hard to get your brain around. I wouldn’t say that this book was exactly a page turner either. But it does offer an easier way in than most of what I have read by Mandelbrot.
(Have a look at my review of The Fractal Geometery of Nature if you want more about fractals.)
That still doesn’t make it an easy read, but it is perhaps a better place to start for people who are a rusty on the mathematical side of things. You get a lot of stories and plenty of real life examples. But you don’t find out how to become rich.