This chapter explores the study of war and conflict from a mathematical perspective, focusing on the work of Lewis Fry Richardson. It delves into Richardson's efforts to collect casualty numbers during World War I and his analysis of war data using plots and distributions. The chapter also discusses how analyzing collective behavior can help understand patterns in wars, drawing comparisons to traffic and financial markets.
When we think of what caused a certain number of people to die in a specific war, we tend to think about a number of factors. for example, the terrain or political drivers. But what if the number of deaths that occur in a war is actually dictated by something far less obvious?
Neil Johnson, Professor of Physics and Head of the Dynamic Online Networks Lab at George Washington University, has returned to explain how studying the casualties of war can give us a greater understanding of the causes of war.
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