Monkeynomics

Just like with the real coccyx, we should expect to see analogues to the legacy artifacts discussed in a previous post in other animals sharing recent evolutionary ancestors with us humans. In other words: monkeys should be as predictably irrational as we are; at least in some cases.

Turns out, they are.

More Pi

Hmmm. Pie.

In a previous post I’ve explained how we can estimate the number Pi using Monte Carlo Methods (basically throwing darts at a circle). I personally think this method is quite elegant, but it is not particularly efficient. It might take a very, very, very long time for it to converge to anything close to the actual number. Still, pretty awesome.

This week I’ve compiled a simple, interactive and more visual example using the jQuery library and SVG graphics. You can find it here. Let me know what you think.

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Update (april 2nd 2011): Code for this project is now available on Github.