On Wednesday 15 May, Professor Matthew Turner, University of Warwick, will give the CS4 talk ‘Social Fluids’.
“Bird flocks, insect swarms and fish shoals resemble fluids made up of many individuals in which the controlling interactions are social rather than physical in character. It may be that these animal systems tell us something about human societies or inform developments in swarm robotics. Some progress has been made recently on reverse-engineering candidate models for the interactions between animals that are local in space, either in a metric-based or topological sense. A question that has been largely overlooked is whether the interactions should be expected to be local in the first place. I will present evidence that they must have a non-local character and, furthermore, that there is a natural choice for this that is consistent with the cognitive limitations of animal vision.
This leads us to propose a non-local hybrid-projection model. We use this model to make predictions about the global character of the swarm and present experimental data on bird flocks that confirm these predictions. Finally, I will discuss how these models are naturally associated with evolutionary fitness.”
All CS4 talks are free and refreshments will be provided from 5pm.
Location: Building 53 Room 4025, Highfield Campus.
Refreshments served after the talk. No registration is required.
For videos of previous talks and details of future talks please visit:http://cs4southampton.wordpress.com