Royal Society Science Book Prize Winner
Critical Mass
by Philip Ball
Summary
A book on the physics of collective behaviour for general readers, examining how simple rules acting on many individuals can produce large-scale social patterns. Ball draws on statistical mechanics and complexity science to model phenomena such as traffic flow, market crashes, fashion trends, and political alignment. He argues that human societies, while not deterministic, exhibit regularities that science can meaningfully describe.
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Historical Context & Significance
Ball applied physics models to social science, suggesting that individual freedom often gives way to predictable collective "physics".