Webmetricsguru

I just picked up The Social Atom by Mark Buchanan; I'm looking for a way to explain online Social Networks via his ideas, and like the analogy of using physics to explain human group behavior.

I haven't read enough of The Social Atom to write any sort of review of it - but it seems to me that his emphasis on "patterns" being more important than "atoms" that make up a pattern (as in Quantum Physics) is strongly supported in Art.

For example, Paul Cezanne, my favorite artist, well over a 100 years ago discovered that patterns within within nature were actually more important than what he was painting.  Sure, successful artists throughout history were using those principles, but Cezanne was the first one to realize the patterns, themselves, is what often gave objects meaning - via structure. 

By the way, my art ideas, work and life are covered in more detail at www.artnewyorkcity.com (I only allude to them here when they relate, in some way, to Web Analytics).  The relationship to Web Analytics exists because I seek knowledge to explain Social Networks as the Director of Social Media and Community Committee of the Web Analytics Association - hence my ideas about The Social Atom, even though they allude to Art (as I'm also an artist and art critic) belong here.

It seems to me, 20th Century Art flowed out of that idea - even it most artists went off onto other directions - the idea that how you structure things are more important than what your arranging seems to mirror the development of Quantum Physics.

In fact, it would be interesting to have a book (and perhaps something like this exists … I don't know) that, in depth, examines the inter-relationships between the evolution of Science, Art and Music.