About this item
The sweeping story of how the greatest minds of the Scientific Revolution applied their new ideas to people, money, and markets - and along the way, invented modern finance. Money for Nothing chronicles the moment when the needs of war, discoveries of natural philosophy, and ambitions of investors collided. It's about how the Scientific Revolution intertwined with finance to set England - and the world - off in an entirely new direction.At the dawn of the eighteenth century, England was running out of money due to a prolonged war with France. Parliament tried raising additional funds by selling debt to its citizens, taking in money now with the promise of interest later. It was the first permanent national debt, but still they needed more. They turned to the stock market - a relatively new invention itself - where Isaac Newton's new mathematics of change over time, which he applied to the motions of the planets and the natural world, were fast being applied to the world of money.
About the Author
My day job has me professing science writing at MIT, where I teach in the Institute's Graduate Program in Science Writing. I continue to do what I did before I joined the professoriat: write books (and the occasional article) , and make documentary films about science, its history, and its interaction with the broader culture in which scientific lives and discoveries unfold.I've written six books. "Money for Nothing" explores the connection between the revolutionary advances in science of th 17th century with the birth of financial capitalism by retelling the story of the first great stock market boom, fraud and crash: the South Sea Bubble of 1720. "The Hunt For Vulcan" tells the story of the planet that wasn't there -- and yet was discovered over and over again. It is both a tale of scientific undiscovery and breakthrough, and an investigation into how advances in science really occur (as opposed to what they tell us in high school) . My previous books include "Newton and the Counterfeiter" -- which is a great story from a little-known corner of Isaac Newton's life -- and "Einstein in Berlin," which is, I have reason to hope, on the verge of reissue.Besides writing, film making and generally being dour about the daily news, I lead an almost entirely conventional life in one of Boston's inner suburbs with a family that gives me great joy.
