the.com/flocking
thousands of birds turning as one mind, and nobody voted on it.
means a collective behavior where individuals follow simple local rules — stay close, don't crash, match your neighbors — and complex group motion emerges with no leader directing it.
from named for the murmurations of starlings, but formalized in 1986 when computer scientist craig reynolds built boids, a simulation proving three dumb rules could fake the beauty of a flock.
three rulesseparation, alignment, cohesion — that is it
boids origin1986 simulation, no central controller programmed in
same mathmodels fish schools, traffic, and crowd panic
reaction speedstarlings shift direction in under 100 milliseconds