Another attempt to use physics to try to begin to understand the behavior of children:
“Emergence of Social Phases in Human Movement,” Yi Zhang, Debasish Sarker, Samantha Mitsven, Lynn Perry, Daniel Messinger, Udo Rudolph, Michael Siller, and Chaoming Song, Physical Review E, vol. 110, no. 4, 2024, article 044303. The authors explain:
“We observed two novel social phases in children’s movements: a gas-like phase of free movement and a liquid-vapor coexistence phase characterized by the formation of small social groups. We also developed a simple statistical physics model that can reproduce different empirically observed phases. The proposed UWB-RFID [ultrawideband radio frequency identification] technology can also be used to study the dynamics of active matter systems, including animal behavior, coordinating robotic swarms, and monitoring human interactions within complex systems, potentially benefiting future research in social physics.”