漫谈社会物理学

An introduction to sociophysics

进入21世纪以来,社会系统的复杂性已经逐步成为科学研究的热点领域,社会物理学利用物理学的思想和方法研究社会问题,已经取得了不少成果.文章首先简要回顾了社会物理学发展的历史,然后简要介绍了当代社会物理学的研究问题和成果,主要包括行人动力学、社会网络分析和舆论动力学三个方面.涉及社会力作用下行人的运动以及所表现出的群体行为、社会网络结构分析的基本概念,特别是社团结构的定义及其探测方法、基于自旋相互作用的舆论形成模型和相变行为等.

Complexity has become an inspiring scientific topic in the 21st century. Sociophysics takes the approaches developed in physics to deal with the complex problems in social systems, and has seen many a chievements. This article presents a brief review of the history of socialphysics, and an introduction to current research topics and progress. It includes three parts： pedestrian dynamics, social network analysis, and opinion formation dynamics. In pedestrian dynamics, the social force model and its description of collec- tive behavior is introduced. Some basic concepts in social networks, especially community analysis, are also briefly described. Opinion formation models based on Ising spin interactions and corresponding critical phenomena are also included.