
Flocks Of Birds, Schools Of Fish And Swarms Of Locusts Display Amazing Forms Of Collective Motion, While Huge Numbers Of Glow Worms Can Emit Light Signals With Almost Unbelievable Synchronization. These And Many Other Collective Phenomena In Animal Societies Take Place According To Laws Very Similar To Those Governing The Collective Behavior In The Inanimate Nature, Such As The Magnetization Of Iron And The Light Radiation Of Lasers. During Recent Years, This Has Led To The Study Of Swarm Behavior As A Challenging New Field Of Science, In Which Ideas From The Physical World Are Applied In Order To Understand The Formation And Structure Of Animal Swarms. From These Studies, It Has Become Clear That Such Collective Behavior Of Animals Emerges In A Self-organized Way, Without Any Need Of Overall Coordination. In This Book, We Present Different Swarm Phenomena Of The Animal World And Compare Them To Their Counterparts In Physics, In A Conceptual And Non-technical Way, Addressed To A General Readership.
This book investigates the underlying physical principles that govern collective motion and synchronization in both biological swarms and inanimate physical systems. Helmut Satz, a physicist, utilizes his expertise to bridge the gap between animal behavior and statistical mechanics. He argues that the self-organized patterns observed in nature—from bird flocks to laser radiation—emerge from similar mathematical laws rather than centralized coordination. The text presents these complex concepts through a conceptual framework designed for a non-specialist audience.
What You Will Find
Scope Limits
Experts recognize this work as an accessible entry point for those interested in the intersection of biology and physics. Readers frequently note that the prose successfully simplifies complex statistical concepts for a general audience without sacrificing scientific accuracy.
Page Count:
159
Publication Date:
2020-01-01
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
ISBN-10:
0192595016
ISBN-13:
9780192595010
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