There are people in this world who are paid very well to do exactly what you are about to learn. They write mathematical formulas that predict stock prices. They work for hedge funds. They attended MIT and IIT and Oxford. And they use the same platform you are about to open.
“The machine that helped write this lesson also helped write the research papers you have been reading all semester. Today you will use it to build something real. The formula you submit will have your country’s name on it.”
In Lesson 01, you read that Ahmes the scribe wrote a mathematical approximation 3,650 years ago, and that your teacher’s 2026 paper rediscovered the same ratio using a modern framework. The same four operators — C, K, F, U — that appeared in that papyrus, in Galileo’s margins, in the autophagy chapter, in the Chladni plates — appear today in the most sophisticated financial research platforms on earth.
You did not come this far in the series to fill in a worksheet. Today you build something.
| Lesson Basics | |
|---|---|
| Topic | Quantitative Finance · Claude Integration · Platform Walkthrough · TO/TOGT Operators |
| Objective | Write, simulate, and submit a passing alpha on WorldQuant Brain using Claude as your research partner. Add to the USA IQC country score. |
| Level | B1–B2+ — no finance background required. Mathematical curiosity required. |
| Duration | 120 min (can extend to 150 with the extension activity) |
| Skills | Reading technical instructions · AI prompting · Data interpretation · Reflective writing |
| Grammar | Imperative mood (instructions) · Conditionals: if the Sharpe ratio is … then … · Passive: the formula is evaluated by… |
| Tools needed | WorldQuant Brain (free account) · Claude (free account) · Chrome + Claude Extension (optional but powerful) |
Your teacher writes this on the board and reads it aloud:
Discuss in pairs (7 min), then share with the class (5 min):
Your teacher wrote this lesson with Claude. The Principia Orthogona papers were edited with Claude. The Lean 4 proofs were reviewed with Claude. Claude is not a search engine and not a calculator. It is a thinking partner. It makes mistakes — you need to verify what it says. But it will help you understand things faster than any textbook, in your own language, at your own pace.
Open claude.ai now. If you use Chrome, install the Claude Extension — this lets you use Claude on any webpage, including the WorldQuant simulator, without switching tabs.
Copy this prompt into Claude. Read the answer together as a class. What does Claude say? Is it clear? What do you want to ask next? There are no wrong follow-up questions.
→ Open Claude and try this now📌 Chrome users: with the Claude Extension installed, you can highlight any word on the WorldQuant platform and ask Claude to explain it — without leaving the page.
| Term | Plain English meaning |
|---|---|
| alpha | a mathematical formula that predicts which stocks will do better than others |
| universe | the pool of stocks your formula examines (e.g. the 3,000 most traded US stocks) |
| simulate / backtest | test your formula on historical data to see how it would have performed in the past |
| Sharpe ratio | return relative to risk. How much you earn per unit of risk. Must be > 1.0 to pass. |
| fitness | WorldQuant’s combined quality score. Must be > 1.0 to submit. |
| turnover | how often your formula changes which stocks it holds. Very high = too expensive in practice. |
| operator | a mathematical function applied to data (rank, ts_mean, delta…) — the same word as in TO/TOGT |
| neutralization | removing general market bias so your signal is specific, not just “stocks go up” |
| decay | how quickly the signal fades. Decay = 4 means it halves every 4 days. |
| submit | send your passing alpha to WorldQuant’s live pool; it contributes to the IQC country score |
Compare Claude’s sentences to what you wrote in your notebook. Which is clearer? Why? You are allowed to disagree with Claude.
→ Get example sentences from ClaudeYou have seen these operators in every lesson this semester. Ahmes used them to compress a circle into a square. Galileo used them to fold Ptolemy’s universe into Copernicus’s. A cell uses them to decide whether to eat itself. Today they appear in a financial simulator.
Go to platform.worldquantbrain.com/simulate.
Step 1 — Set your universe (Operator C).
In the right panel: Region: USA · Universe: TOP3000 · Neutralization: Market · Decay: 4 · Delay: 1 · Truncation: 0.08
Step 2 — Write a formula (Operator K). Type one of these into the code editor. Start with Alpha 1:
Step 3 — Simulate (Operator F). Click Simulate. Wait 30–90 seconds. The backtester will test your formula against years of real data and tell you honestly whether it works.
Step 4 — Read your results.
Step 5 — Submit (Operator U). If your alpha passes, click Submit. Your alpha enters the WorldQuant live pool. The USA aggregate score goes up. You just contributed to a global scientific competition from a classroom in Newark, NJ.
When your alpha fails — and it will fail on the first try for most people — paste this prompt into Claude with your actual numbers. Use Claude’s suggestions to modify your formula and try again. Failure is not the obstacle. It is the lesson.
→ Ask Claude to help fix your failed alpha📌 Chrome Extension: right-click any term in the simulator results and ask Claude to explain it without leaving the page.
Record your results below. In the last row, invent your own formula. Use Claude to write it in the correct syntax. You observed something about the world — now put it in the machine and see if the data agrees.
| Alpha | Formula | Sharpe | Fitness | Pass? | Your notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alpha 1 | rank(ts_delta(volume, 5)) | ||||
| Alpha 2 | rank(ts_mean(returns, 10)) | ||||
| Alpha 3 | -rank(ts_mean(close/open-1, 5)) | ||||
| Yours | write your formula here | explain your idea in words |
Replace the example with your own idea. This is exactly how professional quant researchers work: they start with an observation about human behavior, then formalize it mathematically. Your observation from life — from your country, your industry, your family’s business — is as valid as theirs.
→ Turn your idea into a formula with ClaudeIn Lesson 01, Discussion Card D asked: “What does it mean that serious academic research comes from your community?” Today you are not just reading research — you are adding to a global scientific competition. Your alpha has the same legal weight as one submitted from a university.
How does that feel? Does it change how you think about what you are capable of? What else have you been told you “cannot do” that might simply not be true?
You used Claude today to explain vocabulary, diagnose a failed alpha, and translate your intuition into a formula. This is a new kind of collaboration: your intuition about human behavior + Claude’s knowledge of mathematical syntax. Neither of you has the complete answer alone.
Where else in your life — your work, your English learning, your paperwork, your children’s homework — could this partnership change what is possible? What are you currently doing alone that Claude could help with?
In Lesson 01, your teacher’s paper marked one conjecture “honestly sorry” — he could not prove it yet and said so publicly. In the simulator today, you may have seen your alpha fail. The machine told you honestly: the Sharpe ratio is 0.72. This is not good enough. The machine does not say it gently. It does not say it cruelly. It simply says the truth.
What is the value of a system that tells you the truth even when you don’t want to hear it? Is there something in your language learning — or your life — where you need that kind of honest feedback but are not getting it?
C, K, F, U. A 3,650-year-old papyrus. A 16th-century margin. A cell deciding whether to eat itself. A sound wave making patterns in sand. A trading signal on a financial platform. Your teacher argues these are not analogies — they are the same structure in different materials.
Do you believe this? If it is true, what else in your life might follow the same four steps: compress to what matters, apply pressure, test against reality, release into a stable form?
Option A — Instructions: Write a step-by-step guide for a classmate who missed today. How do you open the simulator? How do you set the universe? How do you write a formula? How do you know if it passed? How do you submit? Use the imperative: “Open the website. Click on…” Use at least 8 vocabulary words from Stage 2. This is a real document a real person will use.
Option B — The Idea Behind Your Alpha: Explain your own alpha (the one in the last row of the practice table). What did you observe about human behavior that your formula is trying to capture? Why do you believe it might predict stock movement? What did Claude say when you described it? Did the backtester agree or disagree with your intuition?
Option C — The Question That Does Not Have a Clean Answer:
The WorldQuant Brain platform does not know your name. It does not know where you were born, what your English level is, whether you are documented, or whether you grew up in a place with access to good schools. It only evaluates your formula. You have spent this semester reading research papers, building Lean proofs, learning contact geometry and autophagy and Fibonacci sequences — all of it in a second language, in a classroom at Newark, NJ.
Write your honest answer to this: What do you have to offer that the platform is waiting to discover? This is not a grammar exercise. Write what you mean.
Save Claude’s response. Work through it at your own pace. This is your personal curriculum — designed for you, by a machine that does not know your limitations and therefore does not impose them.
→ Get your 4-week plan from Claude| # | Activity | Time |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Question That Changes Everything | 15 min |
| 2 | Meeting Your Research Partner (Claude) | 15 min |
| 3 | The Operators You Already Know | 10 min |
| 4 | Building Your First Alpha (walkthrough) | 30 min |
| 5 | Your Own Alpha | 20 min |
| 6 | Discussion Cards | 15 min |
| 7 | Exit Task | 15 min |
| TOTAL | 120 min |
group_rank, ts_corr, and adv20 in the WorldQuant operator library. Which of the four TO/TOGT operators does each correspond to? Ask Claude to explain.
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