'The Physics of Wall Street'

What happens when some of our greatest innovators - scientists, technology pioneers - find themselves unemployed?

In the case of many Cold-War-era physicists, the answer was: go find a job on Wall Street.

What have mathematicians, computer scientists, and physicists brought to the stock market? Well, the billionaire investor Warren Buffett once warned us of "geeks bearing formulas", but Jim Weatherall isn't so sure that we should be afraid of the new wave of techies in finance.

Kara Miller spoke with Weatherall on Boston Public Radio. He's the author of The Physics of Wall Street and a professor of logic and philosophy of science at the University of California Irvine.