Histophysics: A New Discipline

Lam, Lui

doi:10.1142/s0217984902004809

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 15 publications

(11 reference statements)

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“…When at Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey, as a graduate student from Columbia, my mentor was Philip Platzman. 2 I did my postdoc under Melvin Lax (1922-2002 3 at City College, City University of New York (1972York ( -1975 before moving to Antwerpen, Belgium and then Saarbrücken, West Germany, spending about one year at each place. Starting January 1978, after the Cultural Revolution, I worked at the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in Beijing [Lam, 2010].…”

Section: Our Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Essentially, my physics research ranged from nuclear physics in my Vancouver years (1965)(1966) to condensed matter theory at New York and Europe (1969)(1970)(1971)(1972)(1973)(1974)(1975)(1976)(1977)(1978), and then from liquid crystals research in China andNew York (1978-1987) to nonlinear physics and complex systems in San Jose (since 1987). I started publishing on the humanities in 2002 [Lam, 2002;Lam, et al, 2010].…”

Section: Our Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Indeed, this is the only definition that makes sense since the domain of physics is ever changing. Mature areas like classical Newtonian mechanics shifted from the physics to the engineering department, and new areas such as econophysics [Mantegna & Stanley, 2000] and histophysics [Lam, 2002] came in. Today, physics is not just about nonliving or simple systems; it is also about complex systems, including all those from the social sciences and humanities.…”

Section: What Are Movies? What Is Physics?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Making Movies and Making Physics

Tsui¹,

Lam²

2011

Arts: A Science Matter

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Section: Our Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Our Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: What Are Movies? What Is Physics?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Making Movies and Making Physics

Tsui¹,

Lam²

2011

Arts: A Science Matter

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“…In summary, we report the empirical statistics and modeling for the bilinear effect in Zipf plots in several social systems. The dynasty lifetime results contribute to the advancement of histophysics [29]. Although this letter investigates a few examples, the research is just at its beginning.…”

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Bilinear effect in complex systems

Lam¹,

Bellavia²,

Xiao³

et al. 2010

EPL

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The distribution of the lifetime of Chinese dynasties (as well as that of the British Isles and Japan) in a linear Zipf plot is found to consist of two straight lines intersecting at a transition point. This two-section piecewise-linear distribution is different from the power law or the stretched exponent distribution, and is called the Bilinear Effect for short. With assumptions mimicking the organization of ancient Chinese regimes, a 3-layer network model is constructed. Numerical results of this model show the bilinear effect, providing a plausible explanation of the historical data. Bilinear effect in two other social systems is presented, indicating that such a piecewise-linear effect is widespread in social systems.

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The dynamics of the rise and fall of empires

Gündüz

2016

Int. J. Mod. Phys. C

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The rise of empires can be elucidated by treating them as living organisms, and the celebrated Verhulst or Lotka–Volterra dynamics can be used to understand the growth mechanisms of empires. The fast growth can be expressed by an exponential function as in the case of Macedonian empire of the Alexander the Great whereas a sigmoidal growth can be expressed by power-law equation as in the case of Roman and Ottoman empires. The superpowers Russia and the USA follow somehow different mechanisms, Russia displays two different exponential growth behaviors whereas the USA follows two different power-law behaviors. They did not disturb and mobilize their social capacity much during the course of their rise. The decline and the collapse of an empire occur through a kind of fragmentation process, and the consequently formed small states become rather free in their behavior. The lands of the new states formed exhibit a hierarchical pattern, and the number of the states having an area smaller than the largest one can be given either by an exponential or power-law function. The exponential distribution pattern occurs when the states are quite free in their pursuits, but the power-law behavior occurs when they are under the pressure of an empire or a strong state in the region. The geological and geographical conditions also affect whether there occurs exponential or power-law behavior. The new unions formed such as the European Union and the Shanghai Cooperation increase the power-law exponent implying that they increase the stress in the international affairs. The viscoelastic behavior of the empires can be found from the scattering diagrams, and the storage [Formula: see text]and loss modulus [Formula: see text], and the associated work-like and heat-like terms can be determined in the sense of thermodynamics. The [Formula: see text] of Ottomans was larger than that of Romans implying that they confronted severe resistance during their expansion. The [Formula: see text] of Russia is also larger than that of the USA; in fact the USA did not face severe resistance as they had an overwhelming superiority over native Americans. The [Formula: see text] indicates solidity in the social structure and Romans, Ottomans, and Russians all have [Formula: see text] larger than [Formula: see text]. The [Formula: see text] is slightly larger than [Formula: see text] for the USA indicating that they have had a very flexible social structure. By the same token the ratio of the work-like term to the internal energy is larger for Ottomans than that of Romans, and larger for the USA than that of Russia. That means the fraction of the total energy allocated to improve the social capacity is larger for Romans than that of Ottomans, and is larger for Russians than that of the USA.

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Histophysics: A New Discipline

Cited by 5 publications

References 15 publications

Making Movies and Making Physics

Making Movies and Making Physics

Bilinear effect in complex systems

The dynamics of the rise and fall of empires

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