The Underground Life of Louis Bachelier's work: Three Unpublished Correspondences

Laurent Mazliak () and Mathurin Passard
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Laurent Mazliak: LPSM (UMR_8001) - Laboratoire de Probabilités, Statistique et Modélisation - SU - Sorbonne Université - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UPCité - Université Paris Cité

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Abstract: Despite a substantial body of literature on the origins of financial mathematics in Louis Bachelier's work, direct documentation on the man himself — and on how his contemporaries regarded him — remains scarce. This paper presents, some previously unpublished correspondences sent by Bachelier to three interlocutors: the psychologist and sociologist Gustave Le Bon (1841–1931), the philosopher Xavier Léon (1868–1935), and the Czech mathematician Bohuslav Hostinský (1884–1951). We further document the memory of Bachelier's work within the community of actuaries, arguing that it was this community — more than the mathematicians — that helped keep his work in circulation internationally after his own scientific eclipse.

Keywords: Louis Bachelier; actuarial science; financial mathematics; probability; mathematical statistics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-09-28
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