News and Views
Nature Physics 3, 758 - 760 (2007)
doi:10.1038/nphys770
Subject Categories: Statistical physics, thermodynamics and nonlinear dynamics | Other physics
Social dynamics: Emergence of language
Vittorio Loreto1,2 & Luc Steels3,4
- Department of Physics, 'Sapienza' Università di Roma and SMC, INFM-CNR, Piazzale A. Moro 2, 00185 Roma, Italy
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Complex Networks Lagrange Laboratory, ISI Foundation, Viale S. Severo 65, 10133, Torino, Italy
e-mail: vittorio.loreto@roma1.infn.it -
Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan 2, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium
e-mail: steels@arti.vub.ac.be - Sony Computer Science Laboratory, 6 rue Amyot, 75005 Paris, France
Abstract
Our social behaviour has evolved primarily through contact with a limited number of other individuals. Yet as a species we exhibit uniformities on a global scale. This kind of emergent behaviour is familiar territory for statistical physicists.

