Virtual Bumblebees | Eur Ing Dr James P. Howard II Virtual Bumblebees | Eur Ing Dr James P. Howard II

Dr James P. Howard, II
A Mathematician, a Different Kind of Mathematician, and a Statistician

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Virtual Bumblebees

This project provides a simple environment for modeling an artificial life construct called the Virtual Bumblebees. The Virtual Bumblebees is a two-dimensional cellular automaton where the full board updates each time step based on the prior board state and a limited list of rules.

Artificial life uses information concepts and computer modeling to study life in general, and terrestrial life in particular. It aims to explain particular vital phenomena, ranging from the origin of biochemical metabolisms to the coevolution of behavioral strategies, and also the abstract properties of life as such (“life as it could be”). In the case of the Virtual Bumblebees, it is a cellular automaton, the most famous of which is Conway’s “Game of Life,” first made popular by Gardner.

You can play without installing at https://bumblebees.jameshoward.us/.

Source Code

Installation

The application is a single page HTML site with associated CSS and Javascript files. To install, you can place the files in any web-accessible directory or install locally and open index.html in a browser. Additional information is available in the repository.

Dependencies

  • None beyond a Javascript-capable browser

Contribution guidelines

  1. James P. Howard, II, “Virtual Bumblebees Artificial Life Simulation,” Journal of Open Source Software, vol. 2, no. 13, p. 256, 2017.
  2. James P. Howard, II, “Virtual Bumblebees,” MathFest 2015, Mathematical Association of America, Washington, Aug. 5, 2015.

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