在Abrams和Strogatz 2003以及Patriarca和Leppanen 2004之后，其他五个物理小组独立地开始模拟语言的竞争，而不是从猿的声音中进化出人类语言，或者儿童学习语言。这次演讲集中在Christian Schulze等人和Viviane de Oliveira等人的模型上，这些模型允许模拟大量语言，类似于今天的8，000种人类语言。第一个模型处理的是一种语言的随机突变，从其他语言迁移到其他语言，以及逃离只有少数人使用的语言的连续过程。第二个模型结合了这些飞行和突变方面，忽略了转移，并描述了一个大的地理区域的殖民地的人开始在一个格子点。一种语言的规模是由说这种语言的人数来定义的，第一个模型给出了一个真实的语言规模的对数正态分布，但是这个数字是不好的。对于第二个模型，我们的蒙特卡罗模拟给出了高达10亿的大小，但不是接近对数正态的形状。计划于2006年9月中旬在波兰举行一次会议。
英文摘要：
Following Abrams and Strogatz 2003 and Patriarca and Leppanen 2004, five other physics groups independently started to simulate the competition of languages, as opposed to the evolution of a human language out of ape sounds, or the learning of a language by a child. This talk concentrates on the models of Christian Schulze et al and of Viviane de Oliveira et al which allow the simulation of a large number of languages, similar to today's 8,000 human languages. The first model deals with a continuous process of random mutations of a language, transfer from and to other languages, and flight away from languages spoken by only a few people. The second model combines these flight and mutation aspects, ignores transfer and describes the colonization of a large geographical region by people starting at one lattice point. The size of a language is defined by the number of people speaking it. The first model gives a realistic log-normal shape for the histogram of language sizes but the numbers are bad. For the second model our Monte Carlo simulations give sizes up to thousand million, but not the nearly log-normal shape. A meeting is planned for mid-September 2006 in Poland.
In July 2017, National University of Singapore hosted the 30th International Young Physicists' Tournament (IYPT) with symbolic participation of $30$ competing teams. IYPT is a modern scientific competition for teams of high school students, also known as Physics World Cup. Here we present a brief report from this years competition with a concise list of problems solved by participating teams. For one of the problems, Torsion gyroscope, we also bring a glimpse into its theoretical and experimental solution.
Bit-strings and other modifications of Viviane model for language competition
Viviane de Oliveira等人的语言竞争模型通过将每种语言与32位的字符串相关联来修改。在Viviane模型中，每当语言发生变化时，也会翻转一个随机选择的位。如果只有具有不同位串的语言才被视为不同，那么由此产生的语言大小分布与经验观察到的略微不对称的对数正态分布一致。也尝试了其他几种修改，但要么有更多的自由参数，要么不太符合现实。
Influencing various aspects of human activity, migration is associated also with language formation. To examine the mutual interaction of these processes, we study a Naming Game with migrating agents. The dynamics of the model leads to formation of low-mobility clusters, which turns out to break the symmetry of the model: although the Naming Game remains symmetric, low-mobility languages are favoured. High-mobility languages are gradually eliminated from the system and the dynamics of language formation considerably slows down. Our model is too simple to explain in detail language competition …
Analytic solution of a model of language competition with bilingualism and interlinguistic similarity
Universidade de Santiago de Compostela（圣地亚哥-德孔波斯特拉大学）；ICREA-Complex Systems Lab, Universitat Pompeu Fabra（庞培法布拉大学ICREA复杂系统实验室）；Institut de Biologia Evolutiva, UPF-CSIC（UPF-CSIC进化生物学研究所）；King Abdulaziz University（阿卜杜勒阿齐兹国王大学）
Inspired by language competition processes, we present a model of coupled evolution of node and link states. In particular, we focus on the interplay between the use of a language and the preference or attitude of the speakers towards it, which we model, respectively, as a property of the interactions between speakers (a link state) and as a property of the speakers themselves (a node state). Furthermore, we restrict our attention to the case of two socially equivalent languages and to socially inspired network topologies based on a mechanism of triadic closure. As opposed to most of the previ…
Learning thresholds lead to stable language coexistence
School of Digital Technologies, Tallinn University（数字技术学院，塔林大学）；National Institute of Chemical Physics and Biophysics（化学物理与生物物理国家研究所）；Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma（罗马生物医学大学）
