The physical modelling of society: a historical perspective
The physical modelling of society: a historical perspective
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DOI：
10.1016/s0378-4371(02)01042-7
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发表时间：
2002-11-01
影响因子：
3.3
通讯作者：
Ball, P
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Ball, P
通过寻求揭示人类集体活动的规律，今天的统计物理学家的目标是回归他们的根源。统计学起源于17世纪对社会数字的研究，在出生、死亡、犯罪和婚姻等数据中发现统计不变性后，一些科学家和哲学家得出结论，认为社会是由政府无法控制的不可变的“自然”法则支配的，其中高斯“误差曲线”被视为主题。在19世纪，统计学作为所有科学的数学工具而蓬勃发展，它引起了哲学家、小说家和社会评论家的热烈回应。社会统计学还指导麦克斯韦和玻尔兹曼利用概率分布发展气体运动论，这是统计力学的基础。(C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V.版权所有
By seeking to uncover the rules of collective human activities, today's statistical physicists are aiming to return to their roots. Statistics originated in the study of social numbers in the 17th century, and the discovery of statistical invariants in data on births and deaths, crimes and marriages led some scientists and philosophers to conclude that society was governed by immutable "natural" laws beyond the reach of governments, of which the Gaussian "error curve" became regarded as the leitmotif. While statistics flourished as a mathematical tool of all the sciences in the 19th century, it provoked passionate responses from philosophers, novelists and social commentators. Social statistics also guided Maxwell and Boltzmann towards the utilization of probability distributions in the development of the kinetic theory of gases, the foundation of statistical mechanics. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.