【摘要】 It is of a great pleasure to notice how the field of Sociophysics is today flourishing all around the world and especially in China while remembering the harsh opposition of almost everyone in the earlier times when I started advocating the field (1). Indeed, in 1982 I published 5 papers the very same year setting the frame for the birth of this new field of research at the challenging interface between physics and social sciences (4-6). Thirty years later, I published  a big book "Sociophysics: A Physicist's Modeling of Psycho-political Phenomena" at Springer (7).  A good reason to celebrate ! 　　On this account I will recall a few hard to believe stories about my fight for sociophysics with fun and a touch of humor. I will then come to today situation to review the sequential probabilistic model of opinion dynamics focusing on minority spreading and the role of collective beliefs in the making of public opinion (8-10). Mechanisms driving group polarization will be singled out as well as the emergence of contrarian behavior, which in turn produces those unexpected votes art exactly fifty/fifty. The weaknesses and challenges for the future of the field will be discussed. Especially thé question to détermine if sociophysics can become a prédictive social tool will be adresesd.  　　　　

(1) S. Galam, ？ Physicists as a revolutionary catalyst ？, Fundamenta Scientiae 1 (1980) 351-353 　　

(2) S. Galam, ？ About imperialism of physics ？, Fundamenta Scientiae 3 (1982) 125 　　

(3) S. Galam and P. Pfeuty, ？ Physicists are frustrated ？, Physics Today 4, Letter (1982) 88-91 　　

(4) S. Galam, ？ Misère des physiciens ？, Pandore 18 (1982) 57-58 　　

(5) S. Galam, Y. Gefen and Y. Shapir, Sociophysics : “A mean behavior model for the process of strike ？, Mathematical Journal of Sociology 9 (1982) 1-13 　　

(6) S. Galam, ？ Entropie, désordre et liberté individuelle ？, Fundamenta Scientiae 3 (1982) 209-213 　　

(7) S. Galam, ？ Sociophysics: A Physicist's Modeling of Psycho-political Phenomena ？, Springer,  439 p. 297 illus., 261 in color (2012) 　　

(8) S. Galam, ？ Heterogeneous beliefs, segregation, and extremism in the making of public opinions ？, Physical Review E 71, 046123 (2005) 1-5 　　　　

(9) S. Galam, ？ Public debates driven by incomplete scientific data: The cases of evolution theory, global warming and H1N1 pandemic influenza ？, Physica A 389 (2010) 3619-3631 　　

(10) S. Galam, ？ Collective beliefs versus individual inflexibility: The unavoidable biases of a public debate ？, Physica A 390 (2011) 3036-3054 　　　　

【报告简介】 Serge Galam, a French theoretical physicist specialized in disordered systems, is the founding father of sociophysics, a new field of study that he envisioned and initiated more than thirty years ago.

Galam holds two doctorate degrees in physics with one doctorate from the Parisian University Pierre and Marie Curie received in 1975 and a PhD obtained from Tel Aviv University in 1981. The first one deals with the statistical properties of dense ionized matter while the second one focuses on the study of multicritical phenomena in disordered systems.

While working in physics he started in the earlier eighties to use the modern theory of phase transitions to describe social and political phenomena. He simultaneously envisioned the conditions by which the field of sociophysics will eventually emerge among physicists around the world as indeed it occurred around the year 2000.

In particular, he initiated the use of physics to investigate voting in hierarchical systems, group decision making, the stability and fragmentation of alliances among countries, minority opinions spreading, rumor phenomenon, terrorism, and opinion dynamics under the influence of contrarians and inflexibles.

After being research associate at the City College of New York during 1981-83 and assistant professor at New York University during 1983-85, he joined the CNRS in Paris where he is currently a Director of Research working at the Research Center in Applied Epistemology at the Ecole Polytechnique.

Using his theory of dynamics opinion he has been able to make several predictions about real elections including the May 29, 2005 French referendum outcome rejecting the European constitution several months in advance and against all expectations (the yes was then granted victory with seventy percent of support). After the 2000 American Bush/Gore hung election he provided a model to explain such an “impossible event“ predicting it will start occurring more and more in democracies.

Frequently invited at international conferences and universities, he has given over 300 talks all over the world. He has authored about 120 research papers in the best international journals, 60 popular articles, 30 chapters in books and 3 books including the milestone book ？ Sociophysics: A Physicist's Modeling of Psycho-political Phenomena ？ published by Springer in 2012.

Serge Galam has been included in the 2013 edition of Who’s Who in the World and has been awarded as Outstanding Referee for the Journals of the American Physical Society in 2011.