Sociophysics pp 155-168 | Cite as

Terrorism and the Percolation of Passive Supporters

  • Serge Galam
Chapter
First Online:
Part of the Understanding Complex Systems book series (UCS)

Abstract

Dealing with terrorism is extremely delicate. Too much sorrow, passion, hate, and death are at stake. But that should not prevent us from trying to model the issue to try to single out its bare mechanisms and to eventually be able to curb its destructive capacity. The use of equations combined with what could look a priori like a simplistic viewpoint, but in fact is inspired from the physics of disorder, may indeed provide a new insight, which could eventually open unexpected paths to help in reducing terrorism. Any improvement is urged and should be welcomed. But modeling does not mean discovering the one and only “truth”. The problem is multi-fold, difficult, complex, emotional, and operated by archaic passions. This is precisely why the use of “nonhuman” frames and concepts could turn out to be quite productive in providing us with a different paradigm for encompassing the phenomenon, which may lead to useful solid steps in curbing terrorism.

Keywords

Percolation Threshold Neighbor Connection Social Space Terrorist Activity International Terrorism 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access.

References

  1. 1.
    D. Stauffer and A. Aharony, “Introduction to percolation theory” Taylor and Francis, London (1994)Google Scholar
  2. 2.
    S. Galam, “The September 11 attack: A percolation of individual passive support”, Eur. Phys. J. B 26 Rapid Note, 269–272 (2002)Google Scholar
  3. 3.
    S. Galam, “La détection des réseaux terroristes”, Stratégie et décision: La crise du 11 septembre, General Loup Francart et Isabelle Dufour, Economica, Paris (2002)Google Scholar
  4. 4.
    S. Galam, “Global physics: from percolation to terrorism,: guerilla warfare and clandestine activities”, Physica A 330, 139–149 (2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  5. 5.
    S. Galam, “Terrorisme et percolation”, Pour La Science 306, 90–93, Avril (2003)Google Scholar
  6. 6.
    S. Galam and A. Mauger, “On reducing terrorism power: a hint from physics”, Physica A 323, 695–704 (2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  7. 7.
    S. Galam and A. Mauger, “Universal formula for percolation thresholds”, Phys. Rev. E 53, 2177–2181, (1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  8. 8.
    K. Malarz and S. Galam, “Square-lattice site percolation at increasing ranges of neighbor bonds”, Phys. Rev. E 71, 016125-1-4 (2005)Google Scholar
  9. 9.
    S. Galam, “Global terrorism versus social permeability to underground activities”, in Econophysics and Sociophysics: Trends and Perspectives, B. K. Chakrabarti, A. Chakraborti, A. Chatterjee (Eds.), Chap. 14, Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA: Weinheim (2006)Google Scholar
  10. 10.
    S. Galam and A. Mauger, “On reducing terrorism power: a hint from physics”, Physica A 323, 695–704 (2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012

Authors and Affiliations

  • Serge Galam
    • 1
  1. 1.CREAParisFrance

Personalised recommendations