The Quants: How a New Breed of Math Whizzes Conquered Wall Street and Nearly Destroyed It, by Scott Patterson. New York: Crown Publishing, 2010, 352 pp., $27.00 hardbound.My Life as a Quant: Reflections on Physics and Finance, by Emanuel Derman. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2007, 292, pp., $16.95 paperback.