The Atlantic: Stop me if you've heard this one. A Cornell graduate physics student takes his girlfriend to her first heavy metal concert. Instead of diving straight into the mosh pit, as he typically would, he hangs back "to keep an eye on her."
Being a physicist first and a mosher second ("fieldwork was independently funded"), the student, Jesse Silverberg, can't help but notice curious patterns in what had always felt like the epitome of chaos. "Being on the outside for the first time, I was absolutely amazed at what I saw -- there were all sorts of collective behaviors emerging that I never would have noticed from the inside." So for an even better perspective, he turns to YouTube, to figure out what happens to people under the "extreme conditions" borne of a combination of "loud, fast music (130 dB, 350 beats per minute) ... bright, flashing lights, and frequent intoxication."
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