What about geography and mathematical modelling in the curriculum of economists?
Typical education includes general and special topics for students in each field. Physicists study physics and math, economists – special economic fields and statistics. I think that we can rarely see multi-disciplinarity in university curriculum. Is this because of misunderstanding of importance or lack of supply of professors that could teach that? Maybe, just environment students need to know some physics, biology and social sciences?
But there are many practical problems which require multidisciplinary thinking. I will give few examples – both for existing and non-existing areas of research.
1. Crowd behaviour in panic is one of social applications that require physical thinking. I know that Dirk Helbing has created a lot of knowledge in this area; see for example https://www.researchgate.net/publication/1761631_Crowd_turbulence_The_physics_of_crowd_disasters
2. Planning roads and managing traffic flows to avoid congestion is another social application that requires the knowledge of physics and geography.
3. Empirical study of the density of pedestrian flows can reveal attractive potential of places of interest and traffic junctions in cities and be applied for optimal location of business for sales and consumer service.
4. I have observed an interesting demand pattern that was not learned neither by planned nor by market economy due to its relative complexity. When we have baby boom, there is a propagating wave of demand for children shoes and cloth of certain size. This can be modeled as dynamic stochastic process with evolution of distribution of demand across sizes. If the market does not react, there is always a shortage of certain size – the most frequent size for the current age of baby boomers.
Article Crowd turbulence: The physics of crowd disasters
Absolutely, yes! Among the social sciences there is wrong belief that interdisciplinarity consists in the interplay, say, between economics and history, or anthropology and sociology. Big mistake. The real cross-disciplinary work consists in the dialogue between families of sciences and disciplines. In this case, dear Yuri, physics and the social sciences.
I have just published a book - in Spanish. though - about the importance of the interplay between physicas and the social sciences, f.i. See link below:
Book Complejidad de las ciencias sociales. Y de las otras ciencia...
Dear Carlos, this is probably an interesting contribution. Unfortunately, less people can read Spanish comparing to English (I can read, but very basic texts). I just scrolled the pages and found some topological pictures, but no formulae. So you are probably talking about structures different from symmetry (symmetric access to market is assumed in economics, while stability of small groups like firms or families is typically not addressed). I have an article about structures where some ideas useful for socio-economic modelling are proposed:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/271499741_Elements_of_Structural_Economics
Article Elements of Structural Economics
Dear Yuri, thank you very uch for sharing your paper. I shall read it, indeed.
From a different take, I have invited our friends and colleagiues to a similar post:
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Anyone_concerned_with_the_relationship_between_quantum_theory_and_social_and_human_sciences
Yes. But I would like to be more liberal here.
If a social scientist is interested to understand the physical phenomenon then only he/she should study the physics. We need to remember that there is some natural capacity of our brain dependent to age and surrounding social environment (I am not talking about absolute capacity). Forceful teaching of physics to social scientists may not help as it expected. However relevant subjects can be added carefully in curriculum for better understanding of knowledge and skills.
Now-a-days in India students are being offered Choice Based Credit System (CBCS). Where students can earn a certain proportion of credit required for respective degrees from other relevant subject as well. Which I feel is a good attempt from government and opportunity for students who like to become trained with multidisciplinary knowledge. One of the paper I teach to master students of Geography normally attended by 40% students (of full strength) doing M.Sc. in Physics. Such Inter-disciplinary and multidisciplinary concept is really helpful for both teacher and students.
I agree that physical education should not be obligatory for all social scientists. But it is good that in India some students can choose to add physics to their curricula in social sciences. If this happens, in future some social scientists will also understand physics, and this can change the direction where this science can develop. Multidisciplinary approach is very important today, because many sciences are interlinked, but there are too few professionals to work in the area of intersection.
Many academics regard physics as applied mathematics.
Theoretical economists and financial analysts use mathematical models and applied mathematics.
Empirical economists and financial investment analysts use theoretical statistics and econometrics.
All technical subjects are important in many areas in the social sciences and business, including management, management science, risk analysis, marketing, accounting, financial engineering, and especially economics and finance.
I think that it is generally crucial that scientists can see beyond the confine of their discipline. This includes physics, but many other disciplines as well. As Geographer I had courses in meteorology / climatology, mineralogy, geology, just to name a few outside the core of Human and Physical Geography.
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