How Is Flocking Like Computing?
The Joy of Why
Steven Strogatz, Janna Levin and Quanta Magazine
4.9 • 577 Ratings
🗓️ 28 March 2024
⏱️ 40 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Birds flock. Locusts swarm. Fish school. In these chaotic assemblies, order somehow emerges. Collective behaviors differ in their details from one species to another, but they largely adhere to principles of collective motion that physicists have worked out over centuries. Now, using technologies that only recently became available, researchers have been able to study these patterns of collective animal behavior more closely than ever before. These new insights are unlocking some of the secret fitness advantages of living as part of a group rather than as an individual. The improved understanding of swarming pests such as locusts could also help to protect global food security.
In this episode, co-host Steven Strogatz interviews the evolutionary ecologist Iain Couzin about how and why animals exhibit collective behaviors, and the secret advantages that arise from them.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Throughout the animal kingdom, from tiny gnats to fish, birds, gazelles, even primates like us, |
| 0:18.6 | creatures tend to organize into large moving patterns that pursue a seemingly |
| 0:23.3 | spontaneous collective goal. Often no individual creature appears to act as the leader, orchestrating |
| 0:29.8 | these mass movements. Rather, the animals just seamlessly fall into line. And even though |
| 0:36.2 | it feels like such systems would teeter into chaos |
| 0:39.7 | or instability, these collectives somehow managed to move in ways that appear extraordinarily |
| 0:46.1 | well-coordinated and purposeful, as anyone who has watched a murmuration of starlings or a school |
| 0:52.1 | of fish can attest. But what's the driving force behind this |
| 0:56.4 | behavior? I'm Steve Strogatz and this is The Joy of Why, a podcast from Quantum |
| 1:04.7 | magazine, where my co-host, Jan 11 and I take turns exploring some of the biggest unanswered questions in math and science today. |
| 1:15.9 | In this episode, we're going to be getting to the heart of why animals flock, swarm, and school. |
| 1:22.8 | How are the latest technologies, like artificial intelligence and 3D cameras providing new insight, |
| 1:29.3 | and what can studying animal group dynamics tell us about ourselves, both individually |
| 1:35.3 | and as collectives? |
| 1:37.3 | Here to shed light on these mysteries is evolutionary ecologist Ian Cousin. |
| 1:42.3 | Ian is the director of the Department of Collective Behavior |
| 1:46.1 | at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior |
| 1:48.5 | and a full professor at the University of Constance. |
| 1:53.1 | Among the many honors he's received |
| 1:55.0 | are the National Geographic Emerging Explorer Award, |
| 1:59.0 | the LaGrange Prize, |
| 2:00.3 | the highest honor in the field of complexity |
... |
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