The mosh pit, in addition to being a staple of punk and metal shows for decades, has now apparently become an academic curiosity as well. Cornell University has recently published a study entitled “Collective Motion of Moshers At Heavy Metal Concerts,” which was presented last week at the March meeting of the American Physical Society. Graduate students Matt Bierbaum and Jesse Silverberg have actually created a mathematical module that can simulate and predict patterns for the mosh and circle pits that emerge during live music.
Check out the (surprisingly fun and interesting) simulator over here at the bottom of the page. For those of you more mathematically-minded than I, you can read a PDF file of the study over here.