Sociophysics

Abstract

To the extent that individuals interact with each other in prescribed ways, their collective social behavior can be modeled and analyzed.Twenty - four years ago Paul Krugman, who went on to receive the 2008 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, wrote, “Economics is harder than physics; luckily it is not quite as hard as sociology.”1 Thirteen years ago Doyne Farmer, Martin Shubik, and Eric Smith posed the question, Is economics the next physical science? (see Physics Today, September 2005, page 37). If you were skeptical then about sociology as the next physical science, you may be even more skeptical now.