{{Short description|2004 non-fiction book by Philip Ball}} {{other uses|Critical mass (disambiguation)#Literature}} {{Infobox book | name = Critical Mass | image = Critical Mass.png | image_size = | border = yes | author = [[Philip Ball]] | country = England | language = English | subject = [[Science]] | publisher = Heinemann/Farrar, Straus & Giroux | pub_date = 2004 | media_type = hardback | isbn = 0-374-53041-6 | dewey= 158 22 | congress= HM585.B35 2004 }} '''''Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads to Another''''', a [[non-fiction book]] by English chemist and physicist [[Philip Ball]] originally published in 2004, discusses the concept of a "physics of society". Ball discusses thinkers such as [[Thomas Hobbes]], [[Lewis Mumford]], Emyr Hughes, and [[Gottfried Achenwall]] who have attempted to apply (or argue against the use of) [[physics]], [[chemistry]], or [[mathematics]] in the study of mass social phenomena. He also discusses how the concept relates to recent research, including his own.<ref name="Ball">Ball, Philip. (2004). ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=G-C9k_EvVJ8C Critical Mass] - How One Thing Leads to Another'' ("particles become people", p. 110), New York, Farrar, Straus and Giroux.</ref>
==Physics of society== The outlines of Ball's ''Critical Mass'', the most popular of his many noted books, beginning in various circa 2001 lectures, talks, and articles focused on what he calls a 'physics of society', similar to the [[social physics]] in the [[Auguste Comte]] sense, a subject Ball approaches using [[statistical mechanics]] viewing people as atoms or molecules that show characteristic behaviours in bulk.<ref>Ball, Philip. (2001). "The Physical Modeling of Society: A Historical Perspective"; A Talk Presented at Messina, Sicily; Published in ''Physica A'' 314, 1-14 (2002).</ref><ref>Ball, Philip. (2004). "The Physical Modeling of Human Social Systems", A Review in ''ComPlexUs'', 1, 190, Nov.</ref> The following is an excerpt of his 2003 talk on the physical modeling of society:<ref>Ball, Philip. (2003). "The Physics of Society", A talk Delivered at the London School of Economics, March.</ref>
:"There seem to be 'laws' [of] social systems that have at least something of the character of natural physical laws, in that they do not yield easily to planned and arbitrary interventions. Over the past several decades, social, economic and political scientists have begun a dialogue with physical and biological scientists to try to discover whether there is truly a 'physics of society', and if so, what its laws and principles are. In particular, they have begun to regard complex modes of [[human]] activity as collections of many interacting '[[Agent (economics)|agents]]' - somewhat analogous to a fluid of interacting [[atom]]s or [[molecule]]s, but within which there is scope for decision-making, learning and adaptation."
In his 2004 book, Ball summarizes this to the effect that "to develop a physics of society, we must take a bold step that some might regard as a leap of faith and others as preposterous idealization: particles become people."<ref name="Ball"/> Nearly as soon as he gives this definition, however, Ball falls back on the two biggest hurdles to this perspective: that of the theories of being [[Life|alive]] and of [[free will]], both of which seem to contradict the physics viewpoint.
== Other topics == Other topics discussed in the book include the [[business cycle]], [[random walk]]s, [[phase transition]]s, [[bifurcation theory]], [[traffic flow]], [[Zipf's law]], [[Small world phenomenon]], [[catastrophe theory]], the [[Prisoner's dilemma]]. The overall theme is one of applying modern [[mathematical models]] to social and economic phenomena.{{Citation needed|date=December 2021}}
== Awards == ''Critical Mass'' was the winner of the 2005 [[Aventis Prize for Science Books]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books|url=https://royalsociety.org/grants-schemes-awards/book-prizes/winton-book-prize/|publisher=Royal Society|access-date=25 September 2015}}</ref>
==See also== *[[Critical mass (sociodynamics)]] *[[Psychohistory (fictional)|Psychohistory]] *[[Historical materialism]] *[[Network economics]]
==References== <references/>
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[[Category:2004 non-fiction books]] [[Category:Physics books]]