CHAPTER 36The Reasonable Ineffectiveness of Mathematics in Trading
Mathematics affords virtually unlimited precision, but is limited in its scope.
—PARAPHRASE OF EUGENE WIGNER, “THE UNREASONABLE EFFECTIVENESS OF MATHEMATICS IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES”
Is mathematics a quantum leap forward compared with other methods of thinking? Sure. Its precision beats every other possible “system,” and human intuition is limited by experience. One cannot “see” curves without tangents or intuit an n-dimensional space, but one can study such objects mathematically. Successful trading is about buying cheap and selling dear: Mathematical thinking is an indispensable means to that end. But it also can obscure intuition that necessarily deals with the inexact definitions ...
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