Physical Forces between Humans and How Humans Attract and Repel Each Other Based on Their Social Interactions in an Online World.

ABSTRACT: Physical interactions between particles are the result of the exchange of gauge bosons. Human interactions are mediated by the exchange of messages, goods, money, promises, hostilities, etc. While in the physical world interactions and their associated forces have immediate dynamical consequences (Newton's laws) the situation is not clear for human interactions. Here we quantify the relative acceleration between humans who interact through the exchange of messages, goods and hostilities in a massive multiplayer online game. For this game we have complete information about all interactions (exchange events) between about 430,000 players, and about their trajectories (movements) in the metric space of the game universe at any point in time. We use this information to derive "interaction pote

SUBMITTER: Thurner S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4510560 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature