Sociophysics: the Sznajd model and its applications

The Sznajd model in one year has found several followers. An isolated person does not convince others; a group of people sharing the same opinions influences the neighbours much more easily. Thus on a square lattice, with variables +1 (Democrats) and -1 (Republicans) on every lattice site, a pair (or plaquette) of neighbours convinces its six (eight) nearest neighbours of its own opinion if and only if all members of the pair (plaquette) share the same opinion. The generalization to many possible states is used to explain the distribution of votes among candidates in Brazilian local elections. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.