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Excellent overview of social systems as physical models

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I would like to say that this book is the basis for Asimov's "psychohistory". It isn't, but it is a great collection of social systems and ideas presented as physical and mathematical models. Starting with simple phyiscal models such as spin glasses and ending with game theory, this book is a treasure of lucid explanations about how these models apply to the system being modeled and their limitations.

I found this a very interesting read and I appreciated that the author does not breathlessly hype the models, but explains the reasoning behind each and details the results, where they work and sometimes where they fail.

Can statistical physics predict several collective phenomena?

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I love when studies in one field are taken into a very different and seemingly unrelated area in a way that opens new paths of thought. Sometimes I find conclusions are taken to far, but I enjoy it anyhow. This is exactly what Mr. Ball does in this book.

I truly enjoyed the section on thermodynamics, which explains the laws that govern the changes of phase (solid-liquid-gas) and the critical point in which the intermediate phase can be "skipped". This is really an excellent and clear explanation of the subject. This critical point is used throughout the book to explain different social or collective phenomena, like traffic turning instantly from moving fluently (analogy with a gas in which the particles move freely) to a jam (analogy with a solid in which the particles do not move). The density of traffic was at a critical point and it needed only a little disturbance to trigger the change of phase.

The author claims that several collective phenomena can be explained using statistical physics methods. He compares the individuals to particles in a gas, each acting or moving randomly. The individual behaviour cannot be predicted, but the collective outcome could. I am not really convinced about this. Saying that regarding particles we do not know each particle's initial position, speed and direction but that in the end they are irrelevant to the global outcome is not the same as saying that we can ignore free will since in the end it will be irrelevant to the global outcome. I would think free will is not a magnitude like speed and that it can distort and inffluence randomness and therefore the end result. Maybe statistical physics will work well to predict behaviour in situations in which we shift to the "automatic pilot", like walking on corridors, driving, etc.

A lot of interesting topics are presented in this book, computer simulated "flocking birds" (using a set of a few simple instructions like "do not collide with another bird"), network theory, markets behaviour, studies or simulations of political coalitions between countries during the World Wars, etc. Lots and lots of interesting information.

I especially liked the chapter on game theory that demonstrates that in the long run cooperation between people is the best approach and that even if the non-cooperative seem to gain terrain in the beginning of the game, after a number of runs, cooperation prevails, implying that there's still hope...

Science Art Convergence

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About a month ago I read "Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads to Another" by Doctor Philip Ball, who is a physicist by education and a science writer for Nature. I read it because of my interest in networks and complexity, and this book promised some insights. It was an entertaining read, but was hard going in a lot of places. Despite this the book was well written and flowed naturally.

I did enjoy the first chapter on Thomas Hobbes "Leviathan", probably because I like philosophy! The point of the chapter was that mankind has been trying to discover universal laws of society since at least 1651, and continues to do so. In subsequent chapters at times I was disappointed and found myself saying "So what!" or "Where is the evidence?" - cause and effect where not always clear to me.

What did interest me was the convergence of the hard sciences with the soft arts. By this I mean Ball takes proven examples from physics and applies them to social phenomenon. Sometimes this worked and sometimes it didn't, but nonetheless is evidence of a growing convergence - see for example my review on "Weak Links: Stabilizers of Complex Systems from Proteins to Social Networks" by Peter Csermely. This convergence is most evident to me when small worlds and networks are examined. I always find discussions on phase transitions interesting, particularly when applied to complex human systems, although I must say I am not completely convinced. I am also cautious in applying laws of physics to human behaviour. Particles don't have conscious behaviours - human's do! In fairness Ball does caution against blindly taking scientific laws and applying them to situations like crowd behaviour.

All in all it was an entertaining and thought provoking read, providing one approaches the subject matter with an open and sceptical mind. In this case critical thinking matters!


Regards, Graham

Interesting; entertaining; necessarily disappointing

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CM is well-written, thoughtful throughout, and often quite interesting. PB does a very able job of describing a broad range of social science scholarship, some of it mainstream, some of it fringe, all of it having to do with the application of concepts and methods drawn mainly from the physical sciences to the study of various human phenomena. Throughout, the author presents his material with assurance. However, it seems to me that it is only when he discusses the behavior of the likes of pedestrians or car drivers that he writes from a position of certainty (or reasonable certainty at least). At the end of the day, it is one thing to model traffic flow and quite another to model just about any other type of large-scale social behavior. Applying hard scientific notions to the former seems reasonable enough, and often enough yields reasonable predictions of future 'behavior'. Applying them to the latter, however, seems vanishingly less reasonable, the more complex the behavior under consideration -- and the more players (subject to variable motivations) who contribute to it. Moreover, as the many (very interesting) cases PB discusses show, over and over, the more complex the phenomenon/behavior under consideration, the less rigorously have hard scientific concepts been applied to its analysis. One cannot escape the feeling that so much of the "science" that PB invokes (or, in fairness, that he quotes others as invoking), is only speciously applied to social science problems, serving merely to provide compelling metaphors (the behavior of persons resembling that of particles in thermodynamic systems, etc.). It is certainly interesting that Bell Curves, Power Laws, phase changes, and so forth recur (or at least seem to recur), often unexpectedly, in different contexts. Interesting facts piled on interesting facts, however, do not add up to science -- a science of description perhaps (if such be science), but hardly one of prediction.

There is much of interest in CM, and I very much enjoyed reading it. In the end, though, the book felt like so much sand through my fingers. Far from establishing the legitimacy or the utility of a 'physics' of society, CM left me wondering whether the social sciences have really progressed at all since the time of Hobbes and Locke, Hume and Smith, etc., etc. Having finished CM, I am far more interested in reading the great works of political philosophy than I am in further studying current trends in the science of society. I thank PB for giving me some insight into the latter, and for providing an incisive and compelling overview of the former.

Still reading it... do not let the poilitical physics misguide you

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My Profile 43 yo Mechanical Engineer.. beginner enterpreneur

First I am only in chapter 6, so I will revisit this review and edit accordingly.

As an admirer of the style of Dr. Ball's way of making chemistry accesible to everyone (specially me).. I was just curious by the comments and the approach of this new book, so when I saw the price was right I bought my used copy..just started some days ago and wow!! talk about a tour d force! I went back to my collegue years to remeber the classical political theorist and Hobbes.. just when I thought it was going to be a lecture in political theory, we are taken ino the realms of thermodymamics and statistical physics as models to be used for political physics..but I have not reach that part already, what I think its that this book is a must as a way to teach thermodynamics!!!

So I must admitt I am kind of slow to learn, but if the principles and scopes of thermo were explained as in Critical Mass, then universities would at least be true to the root of word universal.. and that in those times men of science were holistics in their endevours and connected everything in their theories.. if that was good or not let us judge by history.. but at least we were not surrounded by specialist in their ivory towers.. getting back at the book, if thermodynamics is a dry subject be prepared to be enlighten, wow! I even dusted out my "Thermodynamics, Kinetic Theory , and Statistical Thermodynamics" by Sears-Salinger ad began to see the light on the chapters on phase transitions.. in a way, I felt like if the fear of having to hear the axioms and descriptions was shedded off by Dr. Balls's explanations.. do not believe me? see if it happens too.

Again, Im in chapter 6, so there is a lot to see, but only for the thermodymaics insight the book is worth its weight in gold