Since in the real physical measure, every asset has different expected return. So it is not possible to pricing them in physical measure. But if the no arbitrage condition holds, you can change the probability space into a risk neutral measure, so that every asset grows in risk free rate under this measure so that you can discount the expected payoff with risk free rate. In the real world, you can't do that.
This is a mathematical method, very basic while important in derivative pricing. It has a close link with martingale, PDE and SDE. A more general name is change of numeraire. LZ should be very familiar to this method other wise, you can not say you study derivatives.
hope help~