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A new academic paper studying the mosh pit has now been published.

NME is reporting that the paper, called Collective Motion of Mosher at Heavy Metal Concerts, has been published in the field of Physics and Society by the Laboratory of Atomic and Solid State Physics and Department of Physics at Cornell University in New York.

The paper makes a correlation between mosh pits and “kinetics of gaseous particles.” We’re not really sure what that means, but it sounds pretty fancy.

“Human collective behavior can vary from calm to panicked depending on social context. Using videos publicly available online, we study the highly energized collective motion of attendees at heavy metal concerts,” The study states.

It continues, “We find these extreme social gatherings generate similarly extreme behaviors: a disordered gas-like state called a mosh pit and an ordered vortex-like state called a circle pit. Both phenomena are reproduced in flocking simulations demonstrating that human collective behavior is consistent with the predictions of simplified models.”

So all those brain cells you killed at concerts in the 80′s have bettered our scientific understanding today. Pat yourself on the back, you can call yourself Scientist! Take that Mrs. Henderson looks like someone does understand chemistry.