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Manpages XScreenSaverSection: User Commands (1)Updated: 08 Feb 2000 Index Return to Main Contents NAMEcritical - Draw a system showing self-organizing criticalitySYNOPSIScritical [-display host:display.screen] [-foreground color] [-background color] [-window] [-root] [-mono] [-install] [-visual visual] [-delay seconds] [-random boolean] [-ncolors int] [-offset int]DESCRIPTIONThe critical program displays a self-organizing critical system that gradually emerges from chaos.critical performs a simulation on a two-dimensional array of integers. The array is initialized to random values. On each iteration, it draws a line to the array position with the greatest value. It then replaces that location and the eight neighboring locations with randomly-selected values. The lines are initially random, but over time a chaotic self-organizing system evolves: areas of the screen which happen to have lower values are less likely to be updated to new values, and so the line tends to avoid those areas. Eventually, the histogram of changes approaches the power-law curve typical of such systems. The simplest documented self-organizing system is the one-dimensional equivalent of critical. I heard about this algorithm second-hand: apparently there was an article in Scientific American describing it sometime in 1997. OPTIONScritical accepts the following options:
ENVIRONMENT
SEE ALSOX(1), xscreensaver(1) xscreensaver-command(1) xscreensaver-demo(1)COPYRIGHTCopyright © 1998 by Martin Pool.Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute, and sell this software and its documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee, provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting documentation. No representations are made about the suitability of this software for any purpose. It is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty. AUTHORMartin Pool <mbp@humbug.org.au>, 1998-2000. Based in part on the XScreenSaver code by Jamie Zawinski <jwz@jwz.org>.
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