Robert C. Merton had been an amateur investor since the age of 10 or 11, had graduated from stocks to options and warrants, and had come to realize that he had "a much better intuition and `feel' into economic matters than physical ones." In the spring of 1968, Samuelson appointed the mathematically talented young Merton as his research assistant, even allocating him a desk inside his MIT office (Merton interview; Merton 1998, pp. 15-16).

Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, loc. 592