From Nautilus:
The Flash Crash reveals that we need a fundamentally different understanding of how modern financial markets work. We believe that it shows us that markets are governed by the same principle as earthquakes and avalanches: self-organized criticality. … James Owen Weatherall is an associate professor at the University of California, Irvine, and author of The Physics of Wall Street.

For the full story, please visit http://nautil.us/issue/23/dominoes/why-the-flash-crash-really-matters.