ALBERT

Description: Swarm intelligence occurs when the collective behavior of low-level individuals and their local interactions form an overall pattern of uniform function. Incorporating swarm intelligence allows us to disregard global models when we explore collective cooperation systems that lack any central control. Blockchain is a key technology in the functioning of Bitcoin and combines network and cryptographic algorithms. A group of agents agrees on a particular status and records the protocol without controlling it. Blockchain and other distributed systems, such as ant colony systems, allow the building of “ants” that are more secure, flexible, and successful. We use the principle of blockchain technology and carry out ant colony research to solve three urgent problems. We use new security protocols, system implementations, and business models to generate ant swarm system scenarios. Finally we combine these two technologies to solve the problems of limitation and reduced future potential. Our work opens the door to new business models and approaches that allow ant colony technologies to be applied to a wide range of market applications.

Description: Recent decades have seen a rise in the use of physics methods to study different societal phenomena. This development has been due to physicists venturing outside of their traditional domains of interest, but also due to scientists from other disciplines taking from physics the methods that have proven so successful throughout the 19th and the 20th century. Here we characterise the field with the term ‘social physics’ and pay our respect to intellectual mavericks who nurtured it to maturity. We do so by reviewing the current state of the art. Starting with a set of topics that are at the heart of modern human societies, we review research dedicated to urban development and traffic, the functioning of financial markets, cooperation as the basis for our evolutionary success, the structure of social networks, and the integration of intelligent machines into these networks. We then shift our attention to a set of topics that explore potential threats to society. These include criminal behaviour, large-scale migration, epidemics, environmental challenges, and climate change. We end the coverage of each topic with promising directions for future research. Based on this, we conclude that the future for social physics is bright. Physicists studying societal phenomena are no longer a curiosity, but rather a force to be reckoned with. Notwithstanding, it remains of the utmost importance that we continue to foster constructive dialogue and mutual respect at the interfaces of different scientific disciplines.