Simulating living organisms with populations of point vortices

摘要

The author has found that time-averaged images of small populations of point vortices can exhibit motions suggestive of the behavior of individual organisms. As an example, the author shows that collections of point vortices confined in a box and subjected to heating can generate patterns that are broadly similar to interspecies defense in certain sea anemones. It is speculated that other simple dynamical systems can be found to produce similar complex organism-like behavior.