Mathematical Formula Describes Human Struggles: From Crying Babies to Wars

It turns out that a broad range of struggles that humans face on a daily basis could be explained by math. Scientists have created a mathematical expression called a "power-law" that actually mathematically describes the severity and timing of human confrontations that affect us personally and as a society.

For example, the manner in which a baby's cries escalate against its parent is comparable to the way riots in Poland escalated in the lead-up to the collapse of the Soveit Union. It comes down to the fact that the perpetrator in both cases (either the baby or the rioters) adapts quickly enough to escalate its attacks against the larger, but more sluggish entity (either the parent or the government). This larger entity is either unable or unwilling to respond quickly enough to satisfy the perpetrator.

"By picking out a specific baby (and parent), and studying what actions of the parent make the child escalate or de-escalate its cries, we can understand better how to counteract cyber-attacks against a particular sector of U.S. cyber infrastructure, or how an outbreak of civil unrest in a given location (e.g. Syria) will play out, following particular government interventions," said Neil Johnson, one of the researchers, in a news release.

That's not all the researchers found, though. They also discovered remarkable similarities between seemingly disconnected confrontations. For example, the escalation of violent attacks in Magdalena, Columbia-though completely cut off from the rest of the world-is actually representative of all modern wars. Meanwhile, the conflict in Sierra Leone, Africa has exactly the same dynamics as the narco-guerilla war in Antioquia, Colombia.

The findings reveal that this mathematical formula is an extremely valuable tool that can be used to make quantitative predictions concerning future attacks in a given confrontation. In addition, it could be used to create an intervention strategy against the perpetrators.

The findings are published in the journal Scientific Reports.