While teaching at MIT, Fischer noticed he did not really fit in with the other professors. It was customary for instruction to be focused on the explanation of already proven practices and industry accepted ideas. Fischer Black was more focused on what has not yet been fully explained or embraced.
Most instructors explained economics and finance with mathematics. Fischer, on the other hand, believed in solving problems first with words. This allowed the problem to be approached from various angles instead of tying it to one mathematical explanation. He argued that finance was more like a language that could be used to arrive at a solution to a given problem.
A for John Doe.
ReplyDeleteHow would you like to have a course like the one described here? Brilliant, I think; but would I be smart enough to get anything out of it?
It's interesting that this most technical of financial theorists starts everything out with words.