QuoteOriginally posted by: UltravioletThat's cool, but could you finally explain me what actually is "Finance"?You cannot really understand Finance until you have a solid, intuitive understanding of Economics, specially Microeconomics, Econometrics, and Game Theory. That would be the first step to getting a deep, inuitive understanding of Finance.

Is this a separate scientific discipline at your uni? AFAIK, in EE Financial Economics and Financial Mathematics are parts of economics and mathematics departments, respectively, while "Finance" usually goes together with Administration, Accounting or some Management studies. Lots of people read it, but doing PhD in these disciplines is probably as developing as PhDs in "Geography of Mathematics" or "Psychology of Informatics"...

QuoteOriginally posted by: traderjoe1976QuoteOriginally posted by: gianluca19QuoteOriginally posted by: traderjoe1976Yeah right. If a Finance PhD claims to be an expert in Physics or Math, everyone would think that it was some kind of joke. But when all these Math PhDs claim to be experts in Finance, that we are expected to take seriously.come on, you are not seriously comparing the accademic difficulty of Finance and Maths?There is a good reason why Finance professors are paid FIVE TIMES more than Math professors in the USA.And it's quite similar to the reason why FO quants are paid more than MV quants.

QuoteOriginally posted by: UltravioletQuoteOriginally posted by: katastrofaFinance is at best applied mathematics. And the mathematics is kind of neat. The problem is with the stuff the mathematics is applied to - it's much less scientific than physics, or even chemistry.I think it's financial maths. I honestly don't know what is "finance" - financial economics? (Katastrofa, to co wykladaja w PL jako np. "Zarzadzanie i finanse" i cale multum kierunkow.) Or maybe everything from taxes to the BS model?I think it's Black-Scholes, CAPM, efficient market thing, itd.

QuoteOriginally posted by: traderjoe1976There is a good reason why Finance professors are paid FIVE TIMES more than Math professors in the USA.Maths itself is conventional, boring and easy. Only maths applied to real world problems starts to be interesting.

QuoteOriginally posted by: GamalQuoteOriginally posted by: traderjoe1976There is a good reason why Finance professors are paid FIVE TIMES more than Math professors in the USA.Maths itself is conventional, boring and easy. Only maths applied to real world problems starts to be interesting.

QuoteOriginally posted by: UltravioletIs this a separate scientific discipline at your uni? AFAIK, in EE Financial Economics and Financial Mathematics are parts of economics and mathematics departments, respectively, while "Finance" usually goes together with Administration, Accounting or some Management studies. Lots of people read it, but doing PhD in these disciplines is probably as developing as PhDs in "Geography of Mathematics" or "Psychology of Informatics"...You sound like one of my profs back in uni:- DF, don't go and do finance, that'd be a waste: why don't you rather stay here and study 5 more years to apply this beautiful advanced QFT to the theoretical characterization of this semiconductor system with little-to-no industrial applicability whatsoever

QuoteOriginally posted by: GamalQuoteOriginally posted by: traderjoe1976There is a good reason why Finance professors are paid FIVE TIMES more than Math professors in the USA.Maths itself is conventional, boring and easy. Only maths applied to real world problems starts to be interesting.Not easy, come on, don't be so russian.

QuoteOriginally posted by: DevonFangsQuoteOriginally posted by: GamalQuoteOriginally posted by: traderjoe1976There is a good reason why Finance professors are paid FIVE TIMES more than Math professors in the USA.Maths itself is conventional, boring and easy. Only maths applied to real world problems starts to be interesting.Not easy, come on, don't be so russian.This is a Wilmott classic. BTW my 1996 C++/OOP book was <<'translated'>> into Romanian.Lobachevski

QuoteOriginally posted by: traderjoe1976QuoteOriginally posted by: gianluca19QuoteOriginally posted by: traderjoe1976Yeah right. If a Finance PhD claims to be an expert in Physics or Math, everyone would think that it was some kind of joke. But when all these Math PhDs claim to be experts in Finance, that we are expected to take seriously.come on, you are not seriously comparing the accademic difficulty of Finance and Maths?There is a good reason why Finance professors are paid FIVE TIMES more than Math professors in the USA.and you think this has to do with the fact that Finance is a more challenging subject than Maths?I agree with Devon on the availability of problems to solve in science, but then again the greatest mathematicians will all work on the "big" problems, and there is just an handful of them.

QuoteOriginally posted by: gianluca19and you think this has to do with the fact that Finance is a more challenging subject than Maths?I agree with Devon on the availability of problems to solve in science, but then again the greatest mathematicians will all work on the "big" problems, and there is just an handful of them.Of course, it is. Maths in practice reduces to proving theorems formulated long time ago, you only play with assumptions and unimportant details of the proofs. Someone proved the existence of an equation in Hilbert space, you generalize it to Banach space but still it is the same equation.There are of course "greatest mathematicians" who state new theorems but if you're a genius, you have great achievements in any area. And - how many "great mathematicians" are there? How many of them did you meet? I know one - Nicole El Karoui. Farshid Jamshidian is a genius too but he cannot be considered a pure mathematician, he's more related to the industry than to academia.

QuoteOriginally posted by: GamalQuoteOriginally posted by: gianluca19and you think this has to do with the fact that Finance is a more challenging subject than Maths?I agree with Devon on the availability of problems to solve in science, but then again the greatest mathematicians will all work on the "big" problems, and there is just an handful of them.Of course, it is. Maths in practice reduces to proving theorems formulated long time ago, you only play with assumptions and unimportant details of the proofs. Someone proved the existence of an equation in Hilbert space, you generalize it to Banach space but still it is the same equation.There are of course "greatest mathematicians" who state new theorems but if you're a genius, you have great achievements in any area. And - how many "great mathematicians" are there? How many of them did you meet? I know one - Nicole El Karoui. Farshid Jamshidian is a genius too but he cannot be considered a pure mathematician, he's more related to the industry than to academia.the stuff you have written about "existence of an equation" makes little sense.I think you are way too biased towards finance, the two you mentioned have probably never been heard of in most maths departments.great mathematicians alive? Perelman, Villani and many others, you can't really write down a ranking. I have met some excellent mathematicians such as Sir John Ball or Charles Fefferman.To even be able to read research-level maths you need years of studying, obviously if you don't understand it, it might seem it's just about playing with technical details, but it really isn't.

Nicole El Karoui never been heard of in most maths departments?Are you sure you work in mathematical finance?

QuoteOriginally posted by: GamalNicole El Karoui never been heard of in most maths departments?Are you sure you work in mathematical finance?there is a lot more to maths than mathematical finance.In the research centre I'm working in now I'm quite sure noone has ever heard of her.anyway, you confirm the fact that your idea of maths research is biased and incomplete, comparing the intellectual challenges of maths and finance is silly.

QuoteOriginally posted by: GamalNicole El Karoui never been heard of in most maths departments?Are you sure you work in mathematical finance?She is very well known to science in general - certainly everywhere where the dynamics of systems out of equilibrium matters.