History
The concept of critical mass was originally created by game theorist Thomas Schelling and sociologist Mark Granovetter to explain the actions and behaviors of a wide range of people and phenomenon. It was first established and named in Schelling's essay about racial segregation in neighborhoods, published in 1971 in the Journal of Mathematical Sociology, and later in his book, Micromotives and Macrobehavior, published in 1978. The work of Mark Granovetter and his essay, “Threshold models of collective behavior", published in the American Journal of Sociology in 1978 worked to solidify the theory. Everett Rogers later cites them both in his important work, Diffusion of Innovations, in which critical mass plays an important role.
Read more about this topic: Critical Mass (sociodynamics)
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