The Physics of Wall Street: a brief History of Predicting the Unpredictable

The Prediction Company 
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nist. He was never convicted of a crime, nor was there any reason to 
think that he had compromised classified information. But during 
the heady and paranoid days of Mccarthyism, the mere suggestion 
of communist affiliation was enough to blacklist someone, no matter 
whose brother he was. frank was forced to resign from his position at 
the University of Minnesota, and for more than a decade he was effec-
tively strong-armed out of physics. Living on a substantial inheritance 
(sadly, he was forced to sell one of the van Goghs he’d inherited from 
his father), he and his wife bought a ranch in colorado and made a 
new start as cattle farmers and homesteaders.
It was not until 1959 that Mccarthyism had cooled enough that 
frank oppenheimer could get a job teaching physics at a research uni-
versity, and even then it took the endorsements of a handful of nobel 
and national Medal of Science laureates. Grateful to be back to work, 
he accepted a position at the University of colorado. By now, though, 
the field had long outpaced him, so he limited himself to working on 
topics only indirectly connected to physics, such as science education.
It was at the University of colorado that oppenheimer met a young 
graduate student named tom Ingerson. Ingerson had grown up in 
texas and had gone on to major in physics at the University of califor-
nia, Berkeley. He had come to colorado to work on general relativity, 
the theory of gravitation that einstein had proposed in 1915 as an al-
ternative to newton’s theory. General relativity had brought fame and 
fortune to its discoverer, but it was overshadowed by the new quantum 
theory, which attracted far more attention and funds. this didn’t seem 
to bother Ingerson, who was strong-willed and fiercely independent. 
He would work on what he liked.
In 1964, Ingerson began to think about finding a job in a phys-
ics department. In the 1960s, academia was an old boys’ club in the 
strongest sense. Jobs at the top universities were filled by calling up 
famous physicists at famous schools and asking for recommendations
— which were then given, in frank and certain terms. the “best men” 
from schools like Princeton, Harvard, and the University of Michigan 
were given the best jobs. Lesser men were dependent on the good-
will and reputation of their faculty, though personal connections and 
called-in favors were usually enough to find a job, especially during 

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this, the heyday of the military-scientific-industrial era. colorado may 
not have been in the very highest echelon, but it was up there, and a 
graduate could be reasonably assured of good employment. Unless, of 
course, he used the wrong person as a reference.
Ingerson didn’t learn until many years later that his cardinal sin had 
been mentioning that frank oppenheimer would vouch for him. At 
the time, the physics community’s uniform disinterest in his applica-
tion seemed like a mystery to him. none of the employers he contacted 
wrote back to him until the very end of the school year, and then he 
heard from only a single school, the old new Mexico territory’s teach-
ing college, newly retooled as Western new Mexico University. this 
was how a bright, independent-minded young physicist found himself 
in Silver city, new Mexico, the sole member of the local university’s 
physics department.
Perched on the continental divide, Silver city was a paradigm 
Western mining town. Built in the wake of a major find by silver pros-
pectors, it was in the middle of what was traditionally Apache terri-
tory. trade and transport were difficult and dangerous, with regular 
attacks by regional tribes (and local bandits). In 1873, Billy the Kid, 
then just a teenager, settled in Silver city with his mother and brother
— it was there that, in 1875, he was arrested for the first time, for steal-
ing some cheese. Later that year, he would escape from a Silver city jail 
to begin his life as an outlaw, a fugitive from the Silver city sheriff. By 
the time Ingerson arrived, the days of cowboys and Indians were over. 
But Silver city was still a one-horse town. resigned to make do with 
the cards he had inexplicably been dealt, Ingerson looked for ways to 
engage with the Silver city locals.
He started by volunteering with the local Boy Scout troop, which 
he thought might benefit from his experience as a teacher. It was at his 
first meeting, the same year that he moved to Silver city, that Ingerson 
met a pudgy twelve-year-old named doyne farmer. Silver city was 
filled with engineers, attracted by the mining industry. But a scien-
tist was a rarity. farmer didn’t really know what a physicist did, yet 
he found Ingerson irresistible. farmer decided at the meeting that 
whatever physics was, if Ingerson did it, then farmer would do it, too. 
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t h e p h y s i c s o f wa l l s t r e e t

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