History of the Bachelier Colloquium

Louis Bachelier, founder of Mathematical Finance.

On March 29, 1900, Louis Bachelier defended his thesis entitled “Theory of Speculation” at the Sorbonne. This work of exceptional merit and strongly supported by Henri Poincaré, the thesis director, was published in the "Scientific Annals of the École Normale Supérieure", one of the most influential French scientific journals.
This pioneering study on stock and options market analysis contains several key ideas for financial theory and probability theory. Brownian motion theory, one of the most important mathematical discoveries of the 20th century, has been used to model the movement of prices and the valuation of conditional assets in the stock market. Louis Bachelier's thesis, as well as his other works, profoundly influenced the development of stochastic calculus and mathematical finance.

First Bachelier colloquium: Besançon, March 2000.

This conference was organized on the occasion of the centenary of Louis Bachelier's thesis on "Theory of speculation". This work forms the basis of modern financial mathematics and the theory of stochastic processes. The scientific and cultural programs were highly appreciated by the participants. In addition, this colloquium gave rise to a series of events, in particular the inauguration of a commemorative plaque affixed to the wall of the building where Louis Bachelier taught. A street in Besançon also bears his name.

 Second Bachelier colloquium: Métabief, France, January 2005.

This meeting was dedicated to Professor Albert Shiryaev on the occasion of his 70th birthday. Albert Shiryaev is a leading mathematician, member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. At this conference, he gave a course on optimal stopping.