Castellano2010

Statistical physics of social dynamics

C. Castellano, S. Fortunato and V. Loreto
Rev. Mod. Phys. 81, 591-646, 2009.

Statistical physics has proven to be a fruitful framework to describe phenomena outside the realm of
traditional physics. Recent years have witnessed an attempt by physicists to study collective
phenomena emerging from the interactions of individuals as elementary units in social structures. A
wide list of topics are reviewed ranging from opinion and cultural and language dynamics to crowd
behavior, hierarchy formation, human dynamics, and social spreading. The connections between these
problems and other, more traditional, topics of statistical physics are highlighted. Comparison of
model results with empirical data from social systems are also emphasized.

This paper in Rev. Mod. Phys.

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