Self-Organising Fireflies
at 2:15pm
on Tuesday, 13th May 2003
Fireflies do funny things when you get a load of them together. If you've ever seen the spectacular scenes along tropical riverbanks, where thousands upon thousands of fireflies in the trees all light up and go off simultaneously, you might have wondered why. The answer according to mathematician Steven Strogatz is that fireflies are self-organizing. As he says in this interview on Edge.org, "They manage to get in step every night of the year and flash in perfect time for hours upon end with no leader or prompting from the environment, through what is essentially a very mysterious process of emergence." Fascinating stuff.
Fireflies do funny things when you get a load of them together. If you've ever seen the spectacular scenes along tropical riverbanks, where thousands upon thousands of fireflies in the trees all light up and go off simultaneously, you might have wondered why. The answer according to mathematician Steven Strogatz is that fireflies are self-organizing. As he says in this interview on Edge.org, "They manage to get in step every night of the year and flash in perfect time for hours upon end with no leader or prompting from the environment, through what is essentially a very mysterious process of emergence." Fascinating stuff.
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