This book studies the actual financial phenomena underlying the evaluation of financial derivatives, which is today virtually identified with and even replaced by the study of the mathematical aspects of stochastic calculus as a model for such phenomena. It adopts the view that the study of financial phenomena is on the brink of a revolution similar to that of quantum physics in the 1920s. History has shown that virtually all the major revolutions in physics were made through recognizing the presence of an inherent symmetry in underlying phenomena.

In this volume, a fundamental symmetry in...