Wikipedia talk:The Parable of the Ants

A personal and original thought

I give it to the project. Happy to userfy it if the community would prefer, or even move it to my personal website.

But I'm hopeful it will be of use to the project. Andrewa (talk) 20:48, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Oh, and I might also say, it is based on a true incident. I'm not sure of the number of ants, I'm fairly sure it was more than ten, with several on top. But the point is, there were far more ants pulling sideways then pulling in the right direction, and some actually pulling backwards. But they did get there in the end. Andrewa (talk) 06:37, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

See also User:andrewa/creed. Andrewa (talk) 22:37, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Linking

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Feel free to use a thumbnail of the image to link here from Wikipedia pages (especially talk, user and project pages... hard to see why you'd ever link here from an article...), as in the examples here or similar. I hereby authorise that as sufficient attribution in terms of Creative Commons. Andrewa (talk) 19:30, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

Bad math

"The one pulling the worm away from the nest, they'd have been better off without. Squash it and the project time would be reduced by half" cannot possibly be true with that many ants pulling forward; the drag effect would be much more negligible (if "more negligible" is even a legit phrase).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  05:36, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

What's your calculation? In the scenario, there is a net force of one antworth towards the nest. Squashing the one anti-ant doubles that to two antsworth. I don't think the time accelerating is significant (any more than allowing for relativity was necessary in computing the trajectory of Apollo 11). The coefficient of friction remains the same. So the speed doubles, roughly. It does depend on the efficiency of the ant propulsion systems at these two speeds, which are more significant and both unknown... so it may be more, or less. And I'm assuming that all ten ants are equally strong, which is almost certainly false. And perhaps I should have said remaining project time.

Not sure that it is worth updating even if your objection is substantiated. It's a work of literature, or specifically didacticism, rather than physics. I think it makes the point accurately enough, and doubt that anyone will ever cite its quantitative claims in a PhD thesis on optimising project management in ant colonies. But still interested in your calculation. Andrewa (talk) 03:05, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

Those who criticise math

I take it from the lack of reply above that my math may not be so bad after all.

Or more maybe it's my physics that was really being questioned. I note drag effect (cited above as the rationale that my math is bad) is currently a redlink, and I suspect that it's a pure and inaccurate speculation. Drag (physics) is about fluid flow, and is irrelevant. I Googled "drag effect" and got 152,000 results, but the first few seemed to confirm my guess that it's not a term that anyone with a knowledge of the subject would use.

• http://ontariocurlingcouncil.com/blog/wp-content/APITG/APITG_24_the_drag_effect.pdf refers to the sport of curling, and is a similar effect but without any mathematical treatment.
• https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/drag+effect refers to a bullet passing through flesh, and is a completely different phenomenon (although many coefficients of friction will play some part in it theoretically, but the fluid flow model suggested by the next link might be more relevant).
• https://www.lmnoeng.com/Drag/index.php refers to fluid flow, and is irrelevant.
• https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Drag%20Effect refers to farting. Not sure how seriously to take it.
• And I guess if I went further I'd eventually find mention of the effects of wearing drag, or of watching drag racing. These could all be called drag effects I guess.

Either way, those who wish to criticise math (or physics) should perhaps first learn some. Andrewa (talk) 18:12, 21 October 2018 (UTC)