Ferocitus
Deity
That one is simulating 4 ships travelling together and moving to the left
at increasing speed. The ships each make waves themselves, but the wave
patterns interfere. Sometimes the waves cancel at places behind the ship;
sometimes they reinforce and the waves at that point are larger. At one speed,
the waves almost disappear everywhere.
Waves created by ships means that energy is being wasted, in the sense that
it does not contribute to forward propulsion.
We found ways of calculating the wave pattern made by ships that were up to
100,000 times faster than was possible previously. That meant that I could
then create a population of artificial lifeforms that had the mathematical
behaviour of ships vis-a-vis waves. I then let that population evolve. By
that I mean I kept the best ships, replaced the worse ones with random
ships, and combined (or "mated") the best ships together. It's an extremely
crude approximation of Darwinian evolution. After 1 to 100 hours of computer
time, and many games of Civ while waiting, the population starts converging
on a pattern that makes the smallest waves, i.e. it has the lowest wave drag.
Without the mathematical work to devise fast accurate algorithms, it would have
been a ridiculous exercise. Waiting a day or a few is Ok; waiting 100,000 to
a million days is out of the question.
For me it then all became a game, with a high score to beat (in that case, the
lowest drag.)
^Not commenting cause i don't know what that is.
But i do love use of computers in graphic representation of math. It is something which allows for a (seemingly) very different source of input/impression, and thus may lead to furthering ideas on math itself (and not just consciously imo).
I also like creating patterns just for their own intrinsic beauty.
The green one is just a collection of singularities (like tiny black holes and
white holes) travelling just under the surface of an imaginary ocean.
Grav-Mass is Richard Stallman's idea of celebrating Isaac Newton's birthday
on the 25th of December.
The grey picture is a simple wave pattern created by one singularity travelling
towards the bottom left.
It has some features that are similar to those in the bottom graphic, which
is the pattern made by wind-driven clouds as they pass over a small island in
the Indian Ocean.
Of course, the real world is far more complicated than we could ever hope to
simulate, but logic and mathematics (and physics) sometimes make you feel as
if you are getting a glimpse into the structure of the universe and how it works.
At another level, it's delusional, and that feeling of satisfaction is probably
the same as when somebody with OCD lines up hundreds of matches on a table in
nice straight lines.
DD
