concept

Boids model

Craig Reynolds' 1987 model showing that complex flocking — bird flocks, fish schools — emerges from just three local rules each individual runs, with no leader: avoid collisions (separation), match neighbors' heading (alignment), and steer toward the local center (cohesion). The whole flock's path is an emergent phenomenon. The key consequence: to steer an entire school you need not compute for each fish — seed a local bias into a small fraction and the whole swarm follows.