Why Beauty is Important in Trading Systems and Trading Models – Emini Trading System

In Mr. Arthur Koestler’s book, The Act of Creation, he relates a story that occurred between Mr. Erwin Schrödinger and Mr. Paul Dirac, two founders of quantum mechanic who shared a Nobel Prize in 1933. Mr. Dirac tells a story of how Mr. Schrödinger created his wave equation of the electron. Mr. Schrödinger concentrated on developing his ideas by relying on his thoughts and by making beautiful generalizations, rather than relying closely on experimental data. Mr. Dirac states,

“I think there is a moral to this story, namely that it is more important to have beauty in one’s equations than to have them fit experiment. If Schrödinger had been more confident of his work, he could have published it some months earlier, and he could have published a more accurate equation…It seems that if one is working from the point of view of getting beauty in one’s equations, and if one really has a sound insight, one is on a sure line of progress. If there is not complete agreement between the results of one’s work and experiment, one should not allow oneself to be too discouraged, because the discrepancy may well be due to minor features that are not properly taken into account and that will get cleared up with further developments of the theory...”

I think the moral of this story is that as we develop our trading models and trading systems we too should consider beauty. Are our trading models and systems “beautiful”? Or are they a jumble and a mess of ideas? Mathematicians look at equations and theories and can see beauty in them. All type of art forms have beauty in them. As trading system creators, we too should not forget to make our models “beautiful.”