Related papers: Social Mechanics
Measurements play a crucial role in doing physics: Their results provide the basis on which we adopt or reject physical theories. In this note, we examine the effect of subjecting measurements themselves to our experience. We require that…
Dynamics, the study of change, is normally the subject of mechanics. Whether the chosen mechanics is ``fundamental'' and deterministic or ``phenomenological'' and stochastic, all changes are described relative to an external time. Here we…
This article introduces into the whole section on Social Sciences, edited by A. Nowak for this Encyclopedia, concentrating on the applications of mathematics and physics. Here under "mathematics" we include also all computer simulations if…
The image of physics is connected with simple "mechanical" deterministic events: that an apple always falls down, that force equals mass times acceleleration. Indeed, applications of such concept to social or historical problems go back two…
Socio-economic inequalities are manifested in different aspects of our social life. We discuss various aspects, beginning with the evolutionary and historical origins, and discussing the major issues from the social and economic point of…
Related to an idea of Lewin, a mathematical model for behavioral changes under the influence of a social field is developed. The social field reflects public opinion, social norms and trends. It is not only given by external factors (the…
The application of Statistical Physics to social systems is mainly related to the search for macroscopic laws, that can be derived from experimental data averaged in time or space,assuming the system in a steady state. One of the major…
We present a method for incorporating a stochastic point of view into physics exercises of mathematics education. The core of our method is the randomization of some inputs, the system model used does not differ from what we would use in…
Probability interference is a fundamental characteristic of quantum mechanics. In this paper we attempt to show with the help of some examples, where this fundamental trait of quantum physics can be found back in a social science…
Social dynamics is concerned primarily with interactions among individuals and the resulting group behaviors, modeling the temporal evolution of social systems via the interactions of individuals within these systems. In particular, the…
I give a concise introduction to some essential concepts of statistical mechanics: 1. Probability theory (constrained distributions, concentration theorem, frequency estimation, hypothesis testing); 2. Macroscopic systems in equilibrium…
In shared space environments, urban space is shared among different types of road users, who frequently interact with each other to negotiate priority and coordinate their trajectories. Instead of traffic rules, interactions among them are…
Despite the wide usage of information as a concept in science, we have yet to develop a clear & concise scientific definition. This paper is aimed at laying the foundations for a new theory concerning the mechanics of information alongside…
Gravity is one of the most prominent models used across various social areas, including economics, demography, mobility, politics, and other systems where spatial interactions are relevant. The model represents a flexible approach that…
Cities are systems with a large number of constituents and agents interacting with each other and can be considered as emblematic of complex systems. Modeling these systems is a real challenge and triggered the interest of many disciplines…
We review the observations and the basic laws describing the essential aspects of collective motion -- being one of the most common and spectacular manifestation of coordinated behavior. Our aim is to provide a balanced discussion of the…
Some basic sociophysical notions are described by a physicist, tentatively for a sociologically-oriented reader.
Human crowds often bear a striking resemblance to interacting particle systems, and this has prompted many researchers to describe pedestrian dynamics in terms of interaction forces and potential energies. The correct quantitative form of…
The fluctuations in nonequilibrium systems are under intense theoretical and experimental investigation. Topical ``fluctuation relations'' describe symmetries of the statistical properties of certain observables, in a variety of models and…
The suggested approach makes it possible to produce a consistent description of motions of a physical system. It is shown that the concept of force fields defining the systems dynamics is equivalent to the choice of the corresponding metric…