The Crowd as an Analog Computer: Emergent Fourier Transforms and Quantum Analogues in Collective Motion

<p dir="ltr">This paper establishes a fundamental link between collective human behavior and physical computation by demonstrating that crowds inherently solve mathematical problems through their motion. We develop a continuum field theory for crowd dynamics and show that human collectives naturally compute solutions to diffusion and wave equations. Most significantly, we introduce and simulate a "Crowd Fourier Transform" : a novel experiment where a crowd acts as a biological analog computer, detecting and amplifying spatial frequencies through decentralized movement. Furthermore, we reveal profound mathematical isomorphisms between crowd dynamics and quantum phenomena, showing how interference patterns, tunneling-like flow suppression, and spatial decoherence emerge classically. This work positions human crowds as macroscopic laboratories for studying universal computation and quantum-classical analogues, bridging social physics, complex systems, and quantum foundations.</p>