Bikas K. Chakrabarti, Anirban Chakraborti
Abstract
Econophysics is a new research field, which makes an attempt to bring economics in the fold of natural sciences or specifically attempts for a "physics of economics". The term Econophysics was formally born in Kolkata in 1995. The entry on Econophysics in The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd Ed., Vol 2, Macmillan, NY (2008), pp 729-732, begins with "... the term 'econophysics' was neologized in 1995 at the second Statphys- Kolkata conference in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), India ...". The Econophysics research therefore formally completes fifteen years of research by the end of this year! The importance and proliferation of the interdisciplinary research of Econophysics is highlighted in the special issue of Science & Culture, which presents a collection of twenty nine papers (giving country wise perspectives, reviews of the recent developments and original research communications), written by more than forty renowned experts in physics, mathematics or economics, from all over the world. We present here the list of contents and the editorial. The manuscript files are available at http://fiquant.mas.ecp.fr/chakraboa for preview. This special issue will be published online at http://www.scienceandculture-isna.org/journal.htm, at the end of October 2010.