The authors of the study “Collective Motion of Moshers at Heavy Metal Concerts” [epub February 13, 2013, arXiv:1302.1886v1] have now come out with a version called “Collective Motion of Humans in Mosh and Circle Pits at Heavy Metal Concerts.” Jesse L. Silverberg, Matthew Bierbaum, James P. Sethna, and Itai Cohen, at Cornell University, published anew in Physical Review Letters [vol. 110, 228701, epub. 29 May 2013], where they say:
“Using videos publicly available online, we study the highly energized collective motion of attendees at heavy metal concerts. We find these extreme social gatherings generate similarly extreme behaviors: a disordered gaslike state called a mosh pit and an ordered vortexlike state called a circle pit. Both phenomena are reproduced in flocking simulations demonstrating that human collective behavior is consistent with the predictions of simplified models.”
A publicly available, jittery video captured them speaking aloud of these things:
(Thanks to investigator Philip Robinson for bringing this to our attention.)