How do swarms of fish or starlings work?
In: 3
It’s emergent behavior from following a few basic rules.
1. Maintain a minimum distance from my neighbors
2. Face the same rough direction everyone else is going
3. Move towards the same rough position as everyone (e.g. that tree over there or whatever)
Let’s say a goose suddenly comes hurtling through the middle of a flock of starlings. Rule 1 means that as the starlings in the immediate path of the goose move away, the starlings next to them also move, forcing the ones next to *them* to move, and so on. Basically causing a ripple effect. Rules 2 and 3 mean that the starlings now peel off into different subswarms, since starlings want to keep aligned with their neighbors (if they kept going on their original direction, paths would cross and crashes ensue). Thus you see a bunch of individuals acting like a single unit.
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