Approach to a Quantitative Description of Social Systems Based on Thermodynamic Formalism

doi:10.3390/e2030098

This article is

freely available
re-usable

Entropy 2000, 2(3), 98-105; doi:10.3390/e2030098

Article

Approach to a Quantitative Description of Social Systems Based on Thermodynamic Formalism

Josip Stepanic, Jr. ¹^,* , Hrvoje Stefancic ² , Mislav S. Zebec ³ and Kresimir Perackovic ³

¹ Department of Quality, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture, I. Lucica 5, Zagreb, Croatia ² Theoretical Physics Division, Rudjer Boskovic Institute, Bijenicka 54, Zagreb, Croatia ³ Institute of Social Sciences Ivo Pilar, Marulicev trg 19/1, Zagreb, Croatia

* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Received: 11 February 2000 / Accepted: 14 July 2000 / Published: 28 July 2000

Download PDF Full-Text [53 KB, uploaded 16 September 2008 11:01 CET]

Abstract: Certain statistical aspects of social systems are described by appropriately defined quantities named social potentials. Relations between social potentials are postulated by drawing an analogy with thermodynamics relations between thermodynamic potentials, thus obtaining a toy model of some of the statistical properties of social systems. Within this model, an interpretation of a socially relevant acting (acting as opposed to action, see ref. [1]) that does not invoke structural changes in social systems, is given in terms of social po-tentials.

Keywords: social systems theory; thermodynamics; social potentials; entropy and temperature of social systems

Article Statistics

Click here to load and display the download statistics.

Cite This Article

MDPI and ACS Style

Stepanic, J., Jr.; Stefancic, H.; Zebec, M.S.; Perackovic, K. Approach to a Quantitative Description of Social Systems Based on Thermodynamic Formalism. Entropy 2000, 2, 98-105.

AMA Style

Stepanic J., Jr., Stefancic H., Zebec M.S., Perackovic K. Approach to a Quantitative Description of Social Systems Based on Thermodynamic Formalism. Entropy. 2000; 2(3):98-105.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Stepanic, Josip, Jr.; Stefancic, Hrvoje; Zebec, Mislav S.; Perackovic, Kresimir. 2000. "Approach to a Quantitative Description of Social Systems Based on Thermodynamic Formalism." Entropy 2, no. 3: 98-105.

Entropy EISSN 1099-4300 Published by MDPI Publishing, Basel, Switzerland RSS E-Mail Table of Contents Alert