‘Running of the bulls’ festival crowds move like charged particles


People run from bulls in Pamplona, Spain

Crowds at the San Fermín festival in Pamplona during the famous bull run

Migel/Shutterstock

People in a very dense crowd move in small circular “orbits”, like charged particles moving in a magnetic field. The unexpected discovery may help lead to improved mathematical descriptions of dense crowds, which could help us better understand why crowds sometimes move in a way that can lead to people being injured.

Denis Bartolo at ENS de Lyon in France and his colleagues studied videos of the dense crowds that form at the opening of the…

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