In 1900, despite the currency of the popular "science of investing," the financial markets were an unusual topic for an aspirant academic mathematician. "Too much on finance!" was the private comment on Bachelier's thesis by the leading French probability theorist, Paul Levy (quoted in Courtault et al. 2000, p. 346). Bachelier's contemporaries doubted his rigor, and his career in mathematics was modest: he was 57 before he achieved a full professorship, at Besancon rather than Paris.

Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, loc. 266