Modeling complex systems with simple JavaScript
Basic math works when you can map inputs to outputs directly. Turn up the hot water by x, and the mix temperature rises by y. But plenty of real-world problems don't behave that way. A warehouse might run smoothly with four employees, but a fifth worker causes so much interference that total output doesn't increase at all.
When you can't begin to guess how the variables interact, you still often know what each individual is doing. If you can write a little JavaScript that simulates each worker's behavior, you can run the whole system forward and watch what emerges. Tweak the parameters and the rules, and you can start to see what changes would help — gaining real traction on problems that are too complicated for equations.
That's the idea behind hash.ai, a free online platform for building these agent-based simulations. Read the launch blog post and try building your own models.
