In social physics, Mark Buchanan (1961-) (CR:37) is an American-born English physicist noted for his 2000 book Ubiquity, in which he extends on the critical state sandpile work of Danish physicist Per Bak to elaborate on physics-based theories applied to humanity such as 'chain reactions, 'power laws', the buildup of 'global stress', and 'critical states', etc., apply to bulk social phenomena, such as catastrophes, world wars, mass extinctions. [1] Buchanan later summarized this perspective in his 2007 book The Social Atom.“Beyond organizational engineering is the possibility of building physicslike models of human behavior, coined ‘social physics’ by Mark Buchanan. A social physics would allow us to discover fundamental laws that govern all human organizations. If human behavior were largely governed by logical argument and conscious decision, we could not build such models because there would be no fixed laws beyond those that stem directly from the definition of rationality. The sociometer data, however, reveal a different side of humanity—one in which humans react to each other in a regular predictable manner.”
| |
| Buchanan's 2000 book Ubiquity, outlining a tipping point theory and power law theory; and his 2007 The Social Atoms, arguing that one should think of people as atoms or molecules. | |
See also: human atoms, human particles2007 book The Social Atom in which he conceives of a human particle view of individual people, calling us "social atoms" speculating on how thermodynamics and physics apply to the mass behaviors of social systems of what he calls “social atoms” or people. [2] The following is an excerpt:
“We should think of people as if they were atoms or molecules … following simple rules and try to learn patterns to which those rules lead.”
