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Ittay Weiss, Mathematician, University of Portsmouth

Are prices real? How ghosts of calculus and physics influenced what we pay for things today

Marina Sun / Shutterstock

With inflation in the UK and around the world threatening to spiral out of control, prices of everything from milk to oil, energy and Christmas presents are a concern for most of us. Most people understand prices as simply the result of supply and demand – an agreement between sellers and buyers about how much something should cost.

But there’s more to these numbers, starting with the mathematically philosophical question: do prices even exist?

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