Sir, British physicist Lewis F. Richardson, who helped pioneer the mathematical study of international conflict, especially the outbreak of the first world war, observed some 70 years ago that war occurs because men do not stop to think – a proposition that triangulates neatly with Spinoza’s claim nearly 300 years earlier that violence occurs when passion overwhelms reason. That people do not stop to think during periods of threat has also been inferred from experiments where neuroscientists have observed that the limbic (emotional) brain overwhelms and overtakes the neocortical (thinking) when the organism is under stress.
英國物理學家李維士•F•理查森(Lewis F. Richardson)開闢了用數學方法研究國際衝突的先河，尤其是一戰的爆發。他在70多年前提出，爆發戰爭是因爲人類不會停下來思考——這一觀點緊密呼應了近300年前斯賓諾莎(Spinoza)的觀點：情感壓倒理智就有可能引發暴力。人們在受到威脅期間不會停下來思考的觀點也可以從實驗中推斷出來：神經科學家發現，當機體承受壓力時，大腦邊緣區域（主管情感）會壓倒和控制新皮層區域（主管思考）。
