Physics vs. sociophysics. Part 1. Physical grounds of social phenomena. Processes in society and solar forcing. Mechanical movement in a system of living particles

The paper presents a state-of-art review of sociophysics: a new growing field of science where the methods of experimental and theoretical physics are used to study social phenomena. Part 1 points to the main area where physics overlaps with social sciences, and presents some examples of social dynamics analysis by physicists, taken from the literature. The topics include the modulation of historical data by climate change and solar activity, modeling of vehicular traffic and other systems of living particles, discrete states and spontaneous transitions in these systems. Next parts will present structures and dynamics of social networks, physical ideas in theoretical economy (econophysics), computational models in sociology, culturology, political science, linguistics, and mathematical history. Some academic problems as well as possible applications of sociophysics are discussed.