Russell Weaver

Russell Weaver · Models & math art

Models

How small choices draw big maps.

Each model runs in your browser, with nothing to install. Two come from Russell's own studies, two from classics of social science, and one is math art. Pick one, change a setting, and press play.

5Models, all live
2From Russell's own studies
1787The oldest idea here
14Plates in print
  1. A grid of gold and gray households, settled into patches of their own kind.
    Model 001 · On the home page

    Schelling's segregation model

    Mild preferences can produce a sharply divided map.

    In 1971 the economist Thomas Schelling showed that households who want only some of their neighbors to be like them can still sort a town into patches of one kind. Set how many like neighbors each household wants, press play, and watch the map divide.

    48 × 48 town · Two groups · Schelling, 1971

    Run it on the home page

  2. A gold lake drawn in contours, with fishing boats scattered across it.
    Model 002 · After Elinor Ostrom

    Tending the Commons

    Thirty fishers share one lake. Eight principles decide whether it lasts.

    Switch Elinor Ostrom's eight design principles off one at a time and see which ones the fishery can't live without.

    30 fishers · 8 principles · Governing the Commons, 1990

    Open the lake

  3. A parking lot seen from above, with cars in rows and orange flyers scattered between them.
    Model 003 · From Russell's research

    Litter Begets Litter

    Every flyer on the ground tells the next driver what is normal here.

    A grocery-store parking lot from Russell's littering study. Choose the neighborhood and how much a worker picks up, and watch each dropped flyer change the odds of the next.

    223 drivers in the study · Applied Geography, 2015

    Open the lot

  4. City blocks seen from above, rows of houses with some marked vacant, under gold contours.
    Model 004 · From Russell's research

    Shrinking City

    Demolition drains the tub. It doesn't turn off the tap.

    Sixteen blocks that keep losing people, from Russell's research on Buffalo's demolitions. Tear down vacant houses, help owners stay, fix and sell, or mow the lots, and see what each does to the vacancy rate and the households.

    384 lots · 16 face blocks · Urban Science, 2018

    Open the blocks

  5. Gold sand on a round black plate, gathered in lines and rings.
    Model 005 · Math art

    Sound Plates

    Play a tone, and the sand draws it.

    Chladni's sand figures on a plate tuned to A = 432, from Russell's NetLogo model. Play any tone, or one of seven chakra tones, and watch the sand find the lines that stay still.

    40,000 grains · A = 432 · Chladni, 1787

    Play a tone

The math art, in print

The Sound Plates' seven chakra figures hang beside seven Contour Plates, topographic maps of imagined ground drawn from the same code as the contours on this site.

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