Robert C. Merton: The First Financial Engineer

Quant Corner Robert Merton Merton model for valuing corporate debt

‚robert merton, who’s best known for his academic work in developing option-pricing models, published his first scholarly paper on a topic far removed from finance: Gulliver’s Travels. While an undergraduate at Columbia University in New York, he wrote a piece for a literature class that analyzed the physical impossibility of a flying island as described in Jonathan Swift’s classic work. Merton...

Foreword to the book, Citation Indexing by Robert K. Merton

I like to read some general significance into Eugene Garfield’s having offered me the privilege of introducing the reader to this book, which sets out the history, method, and implications of his distinctive contribution to the advancement of science: the first multidisciplinary citation index to the scientific literature. My being a close friend cannot account for his having done so. Gene has ...

Speech in Honor of Robert C . Merton 1999 Mathematical Finance Day Lifetime Achievement Award

Mathematical Models for Financial Management By MERTON

Robert Le Rossignol , 1884 – 1976 : Engineer of the ‘ Haber ’ Process

In March 1908, the BASF at Ludwigshafen provided financial support to Fritz Haber in his attempt to synthesize ammonia from the elements. The process that now famously bears his name was demonstrated to BASF in July 1909. However, its engineer was Haber’s private assistant, Robert Le Rossignol, a young British chemist from the Channel Islands with whom Haber made a generous financial arrangemen...