Finding Signal in a World of Noise: Mathematics at Susquehanna

[music] >> Markets are constantly generating information. Millions of decisions are being [music] made every day. People react to those information. They react to each other and they adjust [music] their behavior. As a result, the signal is going to be weak. The noise is going to be enormous [music] and whatever patterns you're going to find might not

persist for very long. >> Math is like art. The joy that people get from solving difficult math problems is very similar to, you know, when they create art. There is also some storytelling involved in solving mathematical problems. >> Yeah, I think that people who you find here at Susquehanna are people who are

really interested [music] in solving difficult, challenging problems. In academia, we always make a lot of assumptions and out of convenience. When you have a real applied problem, you can't do that. [music] And that's both frustrating and very exciting. >> I mean, interesting problems. They look messy at first, but if you spend enough

time and [music] I'll understanding them, you often find something real underneath that wasn't like immediately [music] obvious at first. I've seen that happens in information theory, in machine learning, and now in markets. The problems look different, [music] but the process looks surprisingly similar. >> [music] >> Searching for structure is kind of trying to find the unifying principles

or patterns that are in common with all of these examples or from which we can find a common baseline that we can use to understand how they [music] differ. >> We try to find linkage from between the new research and our existing problems or new problems that we see in the trading environment. [music]