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Netlogo and the ant

By Leslie McTavish
February 9, 2006 - 18:16
Leslie McTavish's picture
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Emergence 361
I've found something that I found interesting with the ant. Given 2 ants and enough time, more times than not (I think I've tried it 4 or 5 times and it's only failed once) the two ants will eventually retrace their steps back to the beginning, erasing everything they have done, and then start all over again. Curious, no? Perhaps I never ran Langton's ant long enough to see of this would happen with his one ant..

Comments

PaulGrobstein's picture

Submitted by PaulGrobstein on February 10, 2006 - 08:07

Assume you set this up yourself, in NetLogo? Where are the two ants relative to one another? Is deterministic, no? So, "tried it 4 or 5 times" means from different starting points? Maybe show it in class on Monday?
Leslie McTavish's picture

Submitted by Leslie McTavish on February 10, 2006 - 08:57

Let me try it a few more times.. The staring points are random. I'd like to try to find a relationship between the proximity of their starting points, and how soon or even if they tend to display this behavior.
julia_ferraioli's picture

Submitted by julia_ferraioli on February 15, 2006 - 13:03

I've tried running a single ant for large periods of time, curious to see if it would create a new pattern besides the "road". It hasn't so far, so I doubt that it would end up retracing its steps. In fact, besides the original road, it doesn't even create any new roads.