 Can a swarm of robots show how schools of fish and flocks of birds actually follow predictable mathematic behavior? And that's just what the Museum of Math wants to showcase in its new exhibit. Well, when we were first kicking around ideas at the beginning, you know, what do we want to have in our museum, there was a thought that we should have an exhibit that would bring out the mathematics of what's called emergent behavior. How simple little individual rules that each of many entities could be following can lead to a global dynamic that is more than the sum of those parts, that seems lifelike or intelligent even though at the root it's just a simple mathematical rule being applied over and over again. How did you actually translate organic-seeming behavior into algorithms? Well, that is, that's the amazing wonder of the mathematics of emergent behavior. So to give this right now, it looks like they're kind of following this leader. There's no leader here. Every one of these robots is following exactly the same rules, and I can tell you basically what they are. They are, don't get too close to your neighbor, don't get too far away from your neighbor, and assuming those are both satisfied, try to head in the average direction of your three nearest neighbors. Now we've talked a little bit about behavior studies, but also we've seen a little bit of real world application. Obviously collision detection in cars are big. Does this borrow from anything in the real world or indicative of what we'll see going forward? Absolutely. To produce this exhibit, we had to take the cutting edge of technology in a lot of different directions. So for example, this floor positioning system is sort of a cousin of a system that Amazon uses in its automated factories so that the shelves full of your order, your Christmas shopping, don't smack into each other as those robots are bringing it to be shipped. When you're looking at how to educate kids and what this kind of goes forward, are you planning on doing more of these kind of, I guess, computer science-centric exhibits? Right. Well, I mean, the thing I would like to say, you're talking about getting kids, why do we want to expose kids to this at an early age? It's because if you want to motivate a kid to study music, you take them to a symphony. Where do we do that in mathematics? Where do we ever show them the amazing achievements that this mathematics can lead them to? This is the symphony of mathematics. The symphony of mathematics is a boxing ring where you get to be a robot god. Well, there you go. We're hoping this will get kids excited and that we'll show them where it all leads and get them more excited and involved in the mathematics that they're forced to study every day.
 Can a swarm of robots show how schools of fish and flocks of birds actually follow predictable
 mathematic behavior?
 And that's just what the Museum of Math wants to showcase in its new exhibit.
 Well, when we were first kicking around ideas at the beginning, you know, what do we want
 to have in our museum, there was a thought that we should have an exhibit that would
 bring out the mathematics of what's called emergent behavior.
 How simple little individual rules that each of many entities could be following can lead
 to a global dynamic that is more than the sum of those parts, that seems lifelike or
 intelligent even though at the root it's just a simple mathematical rule being applied over
 and over again.
 How did you actually translate organic-seeming behavior into algorithms?
 Well, that is, that's the amazing wonder of the mathematics of emergent behavior.
 So to give this right now, it looks like they're kind of following this leader.
 There's no leader here.
 Every one of these robots is following exactly the same rules, and I can tell you basically
 what they are.
 They are, don't get too close to your neighbor, don't get too far away from your neighbor,
 and assuming those are both satisfied, try to head in the average direction of your three
 nearest neighbors.
 Now we've talked a little bit about behavior studies, but also we've seen a little bit
 of real world application.
 Obviously collision detection in cars are big.
 Does this borrow from anything in the real world or indicative of what we'll see going
 forward?
 Absolutely.
 To produce this exhibit, we had to take the cutting edge of technology in a lot of different
 directions.
 So for example, this floor positioning system is sort of a cousin of a system that Amazon
 uses in its automated factories so that the shelves full of your order, your Christmas
 shopping, don't smack into each other as those robots are bringing it to be shipped.
 When you're looking at how to educate kids and what this kind of goes forward, are you
 planning on doing more of these kind of, I guess, computer science-centric exhibits?
 Right.
 Well, I mean, the thing I would like to say, you're talking about getting kids, why do
 we want to expose kids to this at an early age?
 It's because if you want to motivate a kid to study music, you take them to a symphony.
 Where do we do that in mathematics?
 Where do we ever show them the amazing achievements that this mathematics can lead them to?
 This is the symphony of mathematics.
 The symphony of mathematics is a boxing ring where you get to be a robot god.
 Well, there you go.
 We're hoping this will get kids excited and that we'll show them where it all leads and
 get them more excited and involved in the mathematics that they're forced to study every
 day.