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Prof. Dr. Didier Sornette, Chair of Entrepreneurial Risks, Department of Management, Technology, and Economics, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. Didier Sornette says he can see the future of financial markets. Big banks and money managers desperate to avoid repeating 2008 losses are starting to pay attention to his predictions. Now he's out to win over the toughest crowd of all: his fellow academics. Mr. Sornette, 52 years old, is the founder and director of the new Financial Crisis Observatory at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. The Observatory, which aims to scientifically gauge the degree of inefficiency and predictability in financial markets, was established in August 2008, just weeks before Lehman Brothers? bankruptcy. And late last year, it launched a "Financial Bubble Experiment" designed to rigorously test a notion that makes some academics laugh and Wall Street salivate: That scientists can diagnose bubbles as they develop and forecast when they'll pop. Credit: Elisabeth Real for the Wall Street Journal. Slug "Sornette". (KEYSTONE/Elisabeth Real)