In hmolscience, Bertrand Roehner (1946-) is a French physicist noted for his early-1980s to present work in econophysics and sociophysics, some of which is summarized in his 2007 Driving Forces in Physical, Biological and Socio-Economic Phenomena, wherein he theorizes on things such as metastability in post-revolution societies on a semi-thermodynamic basis, social bonding, among others. [1]

Overview
The following seems to be the gist of Roehner’s book: [1]

“This book relies only occasionally on the analysis of chaos—a science initiated by Benoit Mandelbrot (1975) and Robert May (1976); in contrast, it relies heavily on the ideas of network science. Although it can be traced back to system theory which flourished in the 1960s and 1970s, network science really emerged in the late 1990s through the works of people such as Albert-Laszlo Barabasi (2002), Sergei Maslov (2002), Steven Strogatz (2003) or Duncan Watts (2003).”

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Suicide | Dedonding theory

See main: Human chemical bond

In 2005, Roehner, in his “A Bridge Between Liquids and Socio-Economic Systems: the Key Role of Interaction Strengths”, posited that suicide is a type of escape phenomenon similar to way molecules in liquids and selective evaporation due to bonding rearrangements and weak ties. [6]

In 2007, Roehner published Driving Forces, an expansion on his 2005 molecular suicide model; of which the following is thematic to his long-term aim: [1]

“Emile Durkheim, at the end of the nineteenth century, was able to show that there is a clear relationship between the likelihood of suicide and the strength of the bonds which link and individual to the rest of society.”

Roehner goes on to state that the his writing his book so to outline “experimental procedures aimed at estimated the strength of bonds” in society, similar to the manner in which Galileo Galilei famously rolled a ball down an inclined plane some 400 times to find that: [5]


Roehner's measurement of social bonds table; one of the aims of his book being to outline methods to measure social bond strengths.

Roehner's measurement of social bonds table; one of the aims of his book being to outline methods to measure social bond strengths.

“We always found that the spaces traversed by the ball were to each other as the squares of the times and this was true for all inclinations and for all balls.”

Roehner cites this as starting point of modern physics, and eludes to the notion that similar experiments (or sociophysics experiments) are needed to mark the starting point of modern sociophysics. Roehner, on this decent platform, however, seems to think what he calls “network science” is the key, seemingly unaware of classic preexisting social experiments, such as the: sidewalk study (1975), hallway study (1994), the Dunbar number measurement of group stability work of Robin Dunbar (2000s), the Gottman stability ratio work of marriage bonds of John Gottman (1970s), and so on, a seeming “reinventing the sociophysics wheel” phenomenon, so to say; which common to anyone who cites Eugene Stanley’s An Introduction to Econophysics (2000) as being the first book to appear in the field of econophysics or physics based economics, being thereby ignorant of how large and encompassing the so-called mechanistic school was at the start of the 20th century as categorized by Pitirim Sorokin (1928).

Roehner seems to have attempted to work out some of of social bonding theory modeled on chemical and or physical bonding ; the following, e.g., is his table 1.2 “Experimental means for the exploration of bonds”, wherein he compares physical bonding models to social bonding models: [1]

Econophysics
Some of Roehner’s first econophysics publications are based on George Zipf (1982), Vilfredo Pareto (1985). [2] In 1998, he gave an invited talk on “Empirical regularities in Separatism and Integration” at the Harvard sociology department per invited of S. Lieberson. [4] In 2000, he published “Thermometers of Speculative Frenzy”, in collaboration with Didier Sornette. [3]

Education
Roehner presently is a professor at the Institute for Theoretical and High Energy Physics at the University of Paris.

Quotes | Cited
The following are quotes employed by Roehner:

“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”
— John Adams (1770), cited by Bertrand Roehner in Driving Forces (pg. v)

Key
Roehner was found via the key: social metastability.

References
1. Roehner, Bertrand. (2007). Driving Forces in Physical, Biological and Socio-Economic Phenomena: a Network Science Investigation of Social bonds and Interactions (Durkheim, pg. xi; book relies on, pg. 2; table 1.2, pg. 18; thermodynamics, 5+ pgs). Cambridge University Press.
2. (a) Roehner, Bertrand and Wiese, K.E. (1982). “A Dynamic Generalization of Zipf’s Rank Size Rule”, Environment and Planning A, 14:1449-67.
(b) Roehner, Bertrand and Winiwarter, P. (1985). “Aggregtation of Independent Paretian Random Variables”, Advances in Applied Probability, 17:467-69.
3. Roehner, Bertrand and Sornette, Didier. (2000). “Thermometers of Speculative Frenzy”, The European Physical Journal B, 16:729-39.
4. Bertrand Roehner (curriculum vitae) – Sorbonne.
5. (a) Galilei, Galileo. (1638). Dialogue Concerning the Two New Sciences (pg. 178). Macmillan, 1914.
(b) Two New Sciences – Wikipedia.
(c) Roehner, Bertrand. (2007). Driving Forces in Physical, Biological and Socio-Economic Phenomena: a Network Science Investigation of Social bonds and Interactions (Galileo, pg. xiii). Cambridge University Press.
6. Roehner, Bertrand. (2005). “A Bridge Between Liquids and Socio-Economic Systems: the Key Role of Interaction Strengths” (abs) (pdf), Physica A, 348:659-82.

Further reading
● Roehner, Bertrand. (2002). Patterns of Speculation: a Study in Observational Econophysics. Cambridge University Press.

External links
● Bertrand M. Roehner (faculty) – Sorbonne.
● Roehner, Bertrand M. (1946-) – WorldCat Identities.