Samir Varma
Author, Physicist, Entrepreneur, Inventor, Hedge Fund Manager
About
I have a PhD in Theoretical Physics from The University of Texas. The incomparable E.C.G. Sudarshan was my advisor and Nobelist Steven Weinberg was on my dissertation committee. I am the author of The Physics of Free Will: How Determinism Affects Everything from The Future of AI to Traffic to God to Bees. I am working on a second book tentatively titled, I Wish I Had Known That about economics, finance and politics.
In my spare time I enjoy playing guitar and squash. My back won’t let me play golf any more! For computationally irreducible reasons, I have a particular fondness for detective and spy stories, and am obsessed with the music of The Beatles and Pink Floyd.
Experience
VS Asset Management, LLC
Founder and Portfolio Manager
2001 – Present
A completely new and unique investment management concept we call Risk Timing™ that participates in the long-term rise in equity markets but without all of the risk of massive market drawdowns.
Palm Energy Systems, LLC
Co-Founder
2016 – Present
We are developing ground mounted transformative solar energy devices that are not only functional, but beautiful and can be placed anywhere. A game-changer in Green Technology.
Chairman and Chief Scientist
2010 – 2022
Applango developed AI algorithms to make call centers, SaaS and telecommunication companies much more efficient.
Media
World XP Podcast, General, https://worldxppodcast.com/2025/02/16/episode-205-samir-varma-author-physicist-entrepreneur-inventor-and-hedge-fund-manager/
Future of Life Institute, About AI, https://futureoflife.org/podcast/we-created-ai-why-dont-we-understand-it-with-samir-varma/
Ben Yeoh Chats, General, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bfysA4b5bU
World XP Podcast, about tariffs, https://worldxppodcast.com/2025/04/21/episode-214-samir-varma-jon-turek-trump-tariff-conversation/
Connecting with coincidence, with Bernard Beitman about meaningful coincidences, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNgxA2qW_zI
World XP Podcast, About Religion, God & Free Will, https://substack.com/inbox/post/162821532
World XP Podcast, with Priya Sahgal about the India-Pakistan conflict, and the state of the media, https://worldxppodcast.com/2025/05/18/episode-218-priya-sahgal-and-samir-varma-india-pakistan-conflict-state-of-media/
A conversation with the superb philosopher, Nathan Hawkins: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaof4jlOknw&list=PLslTVdCdBr6hhX3gLMsI8qXjJ03ngLy1h&index=2
Talking to Jarvis Cromwell, of the CT Digital Forum. Our segment begins at about the 1:19:30 mark: https://www.youtube.com/live/4VIKZQ-FhTQ
Good Is In The Details. Talking to Gwendolyn Dolske and Rudy Salo about Free Will, AI, and what it means practically. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/good-is-in-the-details/id1466729675?i=1000732084309
An incredible conversation about trading with Waqar of TitansOfTomorrow: https://youtu.be/itRL9v67v9I
WorldXPPodcast. About investing, banking, inflation, housing, regulation, and much more. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/world-xp-podcast/id1518297106?i=1000741405506
WorldXPPodcast. With neurosurgeon Ted Schwartz. About free will; life is a miracle because free will doesn’t exist under the laws of physics! https://worldxppodcast.com/2025/12/29/samir-varma-and-dr-ted-schwartz-free-will-can-be-scientifically-disproven-life-is-a-miracle/
With @Beescornerofyt, a fun conversation about social influence and its effect on free will.
https://www.youtube.com/live/huwmq3FD0OQ?si=zpEWO4TJmWO9EUkV
My old friends, Djordje Minic and Tristan Hubsch have a new and testable way of incorporating gravity into quantum mechanics. We spoke about their upcoming book, The Weight Of The Quantum, on the WorldXPPodcast:
https://youtu.be/3Yo_c5VWavk
Algorithmic Advantage Podcast with Simon M. A wide-ranging conversation covering quantum physics, determinism, AI, Asimov’s laws of robotics, and why academic finance theory often fails in practice. Part 1 of 2. https://algoadvantage.substack.com/p/050-samir-varma-when-academic-finance
Algorithmic Advantage Podcast with Simon M. And now a discussion about trading! Part 2 of 2. https://algoadvantage.substack.com/p/051-samir-varma-prediction-fails
Papers
Within-Venue Monitoring of BTC/USDT Liquidity and Resiliency on Binance: A Queueing-Theoretic Framework, 04/2026, Samir Varma. https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202604.0256
Unified Fermion Mass Ratios from Orbifold Conformal Field Theory, 1/2026, Samir Varma. https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/10.1142/S0217732326500732
The False Promise of Drawdown Rules: New Evidence and a Better Framework, 11/2025, Samir Varma. https://www.pm-research.com/content/iijpormgmt/52/1/145
Quantum Field Theory in Curved Spacetime: An Introduction to Gravity’s Impact on the Double-Slit Experiment, 10/2025, Samir Varma, Arie Kapulkin. https://www.intechopen.com/online-first/1210023
Universal pattern in fermion mass ratios and implications for flavor models, 09/2025, Samir Varma. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1140/epjc/s10052-025-14771-0
“My Newest Patient Cannot Blink”: A Therapy-Loop Prompt Pattern for Trustworthy AI, 5/2025, Samir Varma, Bernard Beitman. https://zenodo.org/records/15556365
Strongly Interacting W’s and Z’s and the existence of a heavy fourth generation of fermions, 04/1993, Silas R. Beane, Samir Varma. https://doi.org/10.1016/0370-2693(93)91207-4 & http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/9304233
Quantum scattering theory in the light of an exactly solvable model with rearrangement collisions, 10/1995, Samir Varma, E.C.G. Sudarshan. https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.531476 & http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/9510170
Finite Temperature radiative corrections to Compton scattering, 10/1992, Physical Review D, Samir Varma. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.46.3630
Onset of wavy vortices in the finite length Couette-Taylor problem, 02/1991, Phys. Fluids A 3, 1510 (1991), W.S. Edwards, Silas R. Beane, Samir Varma. http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.858203
Quantum scattering theory in the light of an exactly solvable model with rearrangement collisions, 10/1993, Samir Varma, PhD Dissertation. https://search.lib.utexas.edu/permalink/01UTAU_INST/be14ds/alma991007806659706011
Inventions
Some of my inventions are:
- Method and system for analysis, display and dissemination of financial information using resampled statistical methods
- System and method for traffic decongestion
- Method and system for analyzing investment information
- Management of information-technology services
- Methods and systems for representing relational information in 3D space
- System and method for software adoption
- System and method for the generation and transfer of a contingently deliverable property right
- System, apparatus and method for analyzing sports information
- Systems and methods using consumer participation in association with an event to effect the allocation of credit to service providers