Recent research has uncovered that crowds at the Feast of San Fermín in Pamplona, Spain, form distinct swirling vortex patterns. Traditionally, crowd movements were thought chaotic, but this study, published in Nature, used advanced computer analysis of video footage. Researchers modeled crowd density and behavior as a continuum similar to fluid dynamics, revealing that once the density of people reached four per square meter, vortex formations emerged. This unique observation challenges previous assumptions about crowd dynamics and highlights complexity even in densely crowded scenarios.
"The swirling was clearly visible in videos of the event, once the footage was sped up," reflects study co-author François Gu about the surprising nature of crowd movement.
"I was like, what is this? Why 18 seconds?" Gu recalls, expressing his astonishment at the periodicity discovered in the crowd's motion.
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