TURING PATTERNS

Leopard spots and zebra stripes are separated by a few thousandths on just two numbers. In the Gray-Scott system, substance U is pumped in at the feed rate while V is drained at the kill rate, and the two diffuse with coefficients 0.16 and 0.08, so the self-catalysing species spreads at exactly half the speed of the other. Set feed to 0.030 and kill to 0.062 and evenly spaced round dots rise out of the sheet; lower them to 0.022 and 0.051 and the dots join into long stripes. Alan Turing predicted this mechanism in 1952, and no line of code draws the pattern.

▸ Loading the 2-chemical grid U, V (Gray–Scott)…
▸ Diffusion + reaction U + 2V → 3V
▸ Change feed/kill → spots, stripes, maze, waves
▸ Turing 1952: biological patterns emerge…
▸ Online. ✅
0%
⌂ Complex systems

Simulation room Turing patterns

Reaction–Diffusion
Online
🦓 spots · stripes · maze
Now showing
🦓 Hoa văn
Feed (f)—
Kill (k)—
Scenario—
Emergence
—
Drag Feed & Kill to shift spots ↔ stripes ↔ maze · pick a scenario (leopard, zebra, coral…) on the right
V pattern coverage over timeV coverage
About Reaction–Diffusion

Leopard spots and zebra stripes are separated by a few thousandths on just two numbers. In the Gray-Scott system, substance U is pumped in at the feed rate while V is drained at the kill rate, and the two diffuse with coefficients 0.16 and 0.08, so the self-catalysing species spreads at exactly half the speed of the other. Set feed to 0.030 and kill to 0.062 and evenly spaced round dots rise out of the sheet; lower them to 0.022 and 0.051 and the dots join into long stripes. Alan Turing predicted this mechanism in 1952, and no line of code draws the pattern.

Related topics in Complexity & Chaos