>When you look at the naming "econophysics" you once again find that it is
the economists who appear to be borrowing the prestige of the physicists,
rather than the other way around.
"Econophysics" is a word that originated in the physics community when
many physicists noticed that an increasing number of papers in physics
journals were developing and experimentally testing theories (i.e. what
science is) about financial markets. It has nothing to do with prestige,
but rather the standard practice for inventing a term to relate a group
of papers/activities of physicists like "biophysics" or "chemical physics"
("economic physics" being a bit wordy).
It is clear that physics is the most successful application area for these
models. Yet their identification with "physics" by economists could again
be seen as abusive.
Only by someone ignorant of physics. Physics is successfully being applied
to financial and business markets because physicists have experimentally
found, by gathering and analyzing data, that financial and business markets
have similar types of non-linear dyanmics as other physical phenomena.
For example, the Levy distribution used to characterize multiscale
phenomena also has been found to characterize the time-dependent nature
of some financial markets. So it is not "abusive", but rather the
recognition that physics is being applied to yet another dynamical
systems (financial markets) successfully because of shared system dynamics.
For example, here is part of the introduction to a European Science
Foundation conference on econophysics:
Econophysics is the interdisciplinary scientific area where
methods from theoretical physics, especially those which have
been generated within the disordered systems community, are
being applied to large and complex socio-economic processes,
in order to obtain a qualitative and quantitative understanding
of the non-trivial dynamical phenomena and persistent patterns
observed in financial and economic time series. This NEW
BRANCH of science has experienced remarkable growth in recent
years. From its modest beginnings, as witnessed in the first
econophysics workshop in Budapest (1996), it has come of age
and turned itself into a RESPECTABLE BRANCH OF PHYSICS, with
impact far beyond the physics domain. Nowadays, the econophysics
approach is becoming more sophisticated, and increasingly
focused on economic realism.
So there is no "abusive" borrowing of the "prestige" of physics by
economists. Rather, econophysics is a growing new, respectable branch
of physics, and as a new science, applications of this science,
new specific business methods, are technical in the classic sense
of any applied science.
Think of it this way - human brains are highly non-linear neurodynamical
systems - their study a long part of the neural sciences. One might
consider brains that make up financial markets as "neural atoms".
While some scientists are studying the microscopic behavior of human
minds, the econophysicists are studying the macroscopic behavior of
interacting non-linear biological systems (brains). Seems all science
to me.
And a good way to promote the disclosure of new, useful applications of
a science is with patents. To fight such patents in Europe is to fight
the progress of a new science in Europe. The European authorities might
want to wonder why anyone would do so.
Your use of "abusive" and "prestige" insults both physicists and economists.
Greg Aharonian
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