Social physics
Since 2001, the Human Dynamics Laboratory at the MIT Media Lab has used digital technologies — from home-brewed portable sensors to cellphone call records — to try to get a quantitative handle on the nature and the consequences of different types of human social interactions. The group’s focus has ranged from the very small, such as speed-dating sessions, to the very large, such as entire cities.In a new book, “Social Physics: How Good Ideas Spread — The Lessons from a New Science,” Alex “Sandy” Pentland, the Toshiba Professor of Media Arts and Sciences and the director of the Human Dynamics Laboratory, draws all that research together into a new theory of human social interaction, which he then applies to questions of organizational management, urban planning, and digital privacy.Pentland’s title appropriates the term that Auguste Comte, generally regarded as the father of sociology, initially applied to his own discipline. According to...