How does human society emerge from the interaction of many people? Are there laws of nature that govern human behavior? How do others follow from some of our deeds and actions?

These questions have worried humanity for centuries. Thomas Hobbes, Adam Smith, Immanuel Kant, Auguste Comte, John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx and other philosophers viewed them from various political positions. However, they lacked the tools that modern physics has.

Philip Ball, a renowned British scientist and consulting editor of the journal Nature, shows how, using these tools, many aspects of the behavior of human masses can be understood. As soon as a person realizes that most of his decisions are made under the influence of other people, an unexpected and even perhaps alarming predictability of the laws of social development opens up before him.

This publication can be considered both as a reference book and as a book to read , designed for the widest range of readers.