This, then, is the environment into which Black-Scholes-Merton option theory was launched in 1973 (I will return below to the simpler theory of futures prices). The theory's abstract mathematics might seem to inhabit a world quite different from the deeply social, intensely bodily interaction of trading pits. The Black-Scholes-Merton model, however, began to have effects on the Chicago Board Options Exchange almost immediately. Even more effectively than the economics of Baumol, Malkiel, and Quandt, the Black-Scholes analysis enabled the Options Exchange to rebut the charge that options were morally disreputable.

Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, loc. 703