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| Author | : Donald MacKenzie |
| Publisher | : MIT Press |
| Total Pages | : 782 |
| Release | : 2008-08-29 |
| Genre | : Technology & Engineering |
| ISBN | : 0262250047 |
Download An Engine, Not a Camera Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
In An Engine, Not a Camera, Donald MacKenzie argues that the emergence of modern economic theories of finance affected financial markets in fundamental ways. These new, Nobel Prize-winning theories, based on elegant mathematical models of markets, were not simply external analyses but intrinsic parts of economic processes. Paraphrasing Milton Friedman, MacKenzie says that economic models are an engine of inquiry rather than a camera to reproduce empirical facts. More than that, the emergence of an authoritative theory of financial markets altered those markets fundamentally. For example, in 1970, there was almost no trading in financial derivatives such as "futures." By June of 2004, derivatives contracts totaling $273 trillion were outstanding worldwide. MacKenzie suggests that this growth could never have happened without the development of theories that gave derivatives legitimacy and explained their complexities. MacKenzie examines the role played by finance theory in the two most serious crises to hit the world's financial markets in recent years: the stock market crash of 1987 and the market turmoil that engulfed the hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management in 1998. He also looks at finance theory that is somewhat beyond the mainstream—chaos theorist Benoit Mandelbrot's model of "wild" randomness. MacKenzie's pioneering work in the social studies of finance will interest anyone who wants to understand how America's financial markets have grown into their current form.
| Author | : Donald MacKenzie |
| Publisher | : MIT Press |
| Total Pages | : 448 |
| Release | : 2004-01-30 |
| Genre | : Social Science |
| ISBN | : 9780262632959 |
Download Mechanizing Proof Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
Most aspects of our private and social lives—our safety, the integrity of the financial system, the functioning of utilities and other services, and national security—now depend on computing. But how can we know that this computing is trustworthy? In Mechanizing Proof, Donald MacKenzie addresses this key issue by investigating the interrelations of computing, risk, and mathematical proof over the last half century from the perspectives of history and sociology. His discussion draws on the technical literature of computer science and artificial intelligence and on extensive interviews with participants. MacKenzie argues that our culture now contains two ideals of proof: proof as traditionally conducted by human mathematicians, and formal, mechanized proof. He describes the systems constructed by those committed to the latter ideal and the many questions those systems raise about the nature of proof. He looks at the primary social influence on the development of automated proof—the need to predict the behavior of the computer systems upon which human life and security depend—and explores the involvement of powerful organizations such as the National Security Agency. He concludes that in mechanizing proof, and in pursuing dependable computer systems, we do not obviate the need for trust in our collective human judgment.
| Author | : Donald MacKenzie |
| Publisher | : Oxford University Press on Demand |
| Total Pages | : 239 |
| Release | : 2009 |
| Genre | : Business & Economics |
| ISBN | : 0199278156 |
Download Material Markets Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
Financial markets, processes, and instruments are often difficult to fathom; and recent turbulence suggests they may be out of control in some respects. Donald Mackenzie is one of the most perceptive analysts of the workings of the financial world. In this book, MacKenzie argues that economic agents and markets need to be analyzed in their full materiality: their physicality, their corporeality, their technicality. Markets are populated not by disembodied, abstract agents, but by embodied human beings and technical systems. Concepts and systematic ways of thinking that simplify market processes and make them mentally tractable are essential to how markets function. In putting forward this material sociology of markets, the book synthesizes and contributes to the new field of social studies of finance: the application to financial markets not just of economics but of wider social-science disciplines, in particular science and technology studies. The topics covered include hedge funds (the book contains the first social-science study of a hedge fund based on direct observation); the development of financial derivatives exchanges (non-existent in 1970, but now trading products equivalent to $13,000 for every human being on earth); arbitrage; how corporate profit figures are constructed; and the crucial new markets in carbon emissions. The book will appeal to research students and academics across the social sciences, and the general reader will enjoy the book's explanations and analyses of some of the most important phenomena of today's turbulent markets.
| Author | : Paul M. Churchland |
| Publisher | : MIT Press |
| Total Pages | : 313 |
| Release | : 2012-01-20 |
| Genre | : Philosophy |
| ISBN | : 0262300826 |
Download Plato's Camera Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
A noted philosopher draws on the empirical results and conceptual resources of cognitive neuroscience to address questions about the nature of knowledge. In Plato's Camera, eminent philosopher Paul Churchland offers a novel account of how the brain constructs a representation—or "takes a picture"—of the universe's timeless categorical and dynamical structure. This construction process, which begins at birth, yields the enduring background conceptual framework with which we will interpret our sensory experience for the rest of our lives. But, as even Plato knew, to make singular perceptual judgments requires that we possess an antecedent framework of abstract categories to which any perceived particular can be relevantly assimilated. How that background framework is assembled in the first place is the motivating mystery, and the primary target, of Churchland's book. Unexpectedly, this neurobiologically grounded account of human cognition also provides a systematic story of how such low-level epistemological activities are integrated within an enveloping framework of linguistic structures and regulatory mechanisms at the social level. As Churchland illustrates, this integration of cognitive mechanisms at several levels has launched the human race on an epistemological adventure denied to all other terrestrial creatures.
| Author | : Donald MacKenzie |
| Publisher | : MIT Press |
| Total Pages | : 484 |
| Release | : 1993-01-29 |
| Genre | : Science |
| ISBN | : 9780262631471 |
Download Inventing Accuracy Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
"Mackenzie has achieved a masterful synthesis of engrossing narrative, imaginative concepts, historical perspective, and social concern." Donald MacKenzie follows one line of technology—strategic ballistic missile guidance through a succession of weapons systems to reveal the workings of a world that is neither awesome nor unstoppable. He uncovers the parameters, the pressures, and the politics that make up the complex social construction of an equally complex technology.
| Author | : Philip Mirowski |
| Publisher | : Harvard University Press |
| Total Pages | : 463 |
| Release | : 2011-04-29 |
| Genre | : Business & Economics |
| ISBN | : 0674061136 |
Download Science-Mart Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
This trenchant study analyzes the rise and decline in the quality and format of science in America since World War II. Science-Mart attributes this decline to a powerful neoliberal ideology in the 1980s which saw the fruits of scientific investigation as commodities that could be monetized, rather than as a public good.
| Author | : Donald MacKenzie |
| Publisher | : Princeton University Press |
| Total Pages | : 304 |
| Release | : 2023-01-31 |
| Genre | : Business & Economics |
| ISBN | : 0691217785 |
Download Trading at the Speed of Light Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
A remarkable look at how the growth, technology, and politics of high-frequency trading have altered global financial markets In today’s financial markets, trading floors on which brokers buy and sell shares face-to-face have increasingly been replaced by lightning-fast electronic systems that use algorithms to execute astounding volumes of transactions. Trading at the Speed of Light tells the story of this epic transformation. Donald MacKenzie shows how in the 1990s, in what were then the disreputable margins of the US financial system, a new approach to trading—automated high-frequency trading or HFT—began and then spread throughout the world. HFT has brought new efficiency to global trading, but has also created an unrelenting race for speed, leading to a systematic, subterranean battle among HFT algorithms. In HFT, time is measured in nanoseconds (billionths of a second), and in a nanosecond the fastest possible signal—light in a vacuum—can travel only thirty centimeters, or roughly a foot. That makes HFT exquisitely sensitive to the length and transmission capacity of the cables connecting computer servers to the exchanges’ systems and to the location of the microwave towers that carry signals between computer datacenters. Drawing from more than 300 interviews with high-frequency traders, the people who supply them with technological and communication capabilities, exchange staff, regulators, and many others, MacKenzie reveals the extraordinary efforts expended to speed up every aspect of trading. He looks at how in some markets big banks have fought off the challenge from HFT firms, and how exchanges sometimes engineer technical systems to favor certain types of algorithms over others. Focusing on the material, political, and economic characteristics of high-frequency trading, Trading at the Speed of Light offers a unique glimpse into its influence on global finance and where it could lead us in the future.
| Author | : Alexander Halavais |
| Publisher | : John Wiley & Sons |
| Total Pages | : 278 |
| Release | : 2013-04-25 |
| Genre | : Social Science |
| ISBN | : 0745656234 |
Download Search Engine Society Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
Search engines have become a key part of our everyday lives. Yet while much has been written about how to use search engines and how they can be improved, there has been comparatively little exploration of what the social and cultural effects might be. Like all technologies, search engines exist within a larger political, cultural, and economic environment. This volume aims to redress this balance and to address crucial questions such as: * How have search engines changed the way we organize our thoughts about the world, and how we work? * What are the ‘search engine wars', what do they portend for the future of search, and who wins or loses? * To what extent does political control of search engines, or the political influence of search engines, affect how they are used, misused, and regulated? * Does the search engine help shape our identities and interactions with others, and what implications does this have for privacy? Informed members of the information society must understand the social contexts in which search engines have been developed, what that development says about us as a society, and the role of the search engine in the global information environment. This book provides the perfect starting point.
| Author | : Andrew Bellamy |
| Publisher | : Chronicle Books |
| Total Pages | : 190 |
| Release | : 2019-04-09 |
| Genre | : Photography |
| ISBN | : 1616898267 |
Download Analog Photography Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
Attracted by the image quality, the tactile joy of a finely made camera, and the affordable prices of vintage equipment, photographers around the world are rediscovering the joys of manual photography. This comprehensive guide to shooting film photography covers all the bases, from setting up a camera through film processing. In a convenient format, filled with diagrams, examples, and illustrations, Analog Photography is a portable reference tool for neophytes and experienced photographers alike. With an irresistible package inspired by the aesthetics of vintage user manuals, this is "a great-looking publication and a fantastic place from which to start, or rekindle, a journey into film photography" (Creative Review).
| Author | : Anthony Pritchard |
| Publisher | : Haynes Publishing UK |
| Total Pages | : 0 |
| Release | : 2012-11-01 |
| Genre | : Sports & Recreation |
| ISBN | : 9780857332356 |
Download BRM V16 in Camera Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
Following in the mould of 'Silver Arrows in Camera', this book explores in period photographs the extraordinary story of the BRM V16, which raced between 1950 and 1954. Over 400 photographs, including a small amount of rare colour pictures are accompanied by an informative commentary. BRM (British Racing Motors) was a motor racing venture created in 1950 to represent Britain in the new Formula 1 category. A symbol of Britain’s post-war rebirth, the BRM car did nothing by halves: its 1.5-litre 16-cylinder supercharged engine and advanced specification made it a technical tour de force, but it earned a reputation as a fantastic folly, such that Stirling Moss described it as ‘without doubt the worst car I ever drove’. This book is a fascinating portrait of a racing car that still engenders enduring fascination.
