Professor Redner ponders the effects of zealots and vacillators

March 31, 2008

What do air particles and voters have in common? According to Professor Sid Redner, they’re a lot more alike than you’d think.

As a statistical physicist, Redner applies the same physical principles used to study interacting particles to social situations, and in turn hopes to model large-scale social phenomena, such as voting behavior. “The human world provides such a rich laboratory that I can see statistical physics almost everywhere that I look.”

You can read more about Professor Redner’s research in his recent interview with physicsworld.com.