A couple of posts ago I was pondering what single sentence about quantitative finance would best tell people in the future how to think about the field if all knowledge of it were lost tomorrow.

I”ve still been thinking about this and I began to realize it’s harder than I thought. With the physical or biological world, you sort of imagine it’ll be there whether you’re there or not, and so a guidepost to the future about atoms or DNA seems like it might be helpful.

But finance? It’s about how to value preferred stock or convertibles, vehicles for corporations to raise capital. Will they still be there too? It’s much harder to formulate one key sentence containing the essence of a field when the objects of your desire are obscure and ephemeral.

So here are the rules: All knowledge of finance gets destroyed tomorrow. What’s your single sentence that points people in the right direction to recreate it or something better? If you want you can email me at eman.blog@mac.com….

First prize is one copy of my book. (Second prize, if there were one, is two copies.) I be the judge.