Online Book: The Division of Territory in Society

[RobA]

Interesting (very deep) mathematical analysis of societal density/distributions and changes.

http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/Book/contents.html

It gives a lot of real world examples that might be useful to map constructed words. Much of the math is quite high level.

I found the development of city (governmental) locations interesting as it seems the same as a vonoroi development.

-Rob A>

[Gamerprinter]

OK, I've downloaded it, but it appears to "way over my head", as I am no mathematician, but it is on topics very interesting to me, so I'll do my best to wade through it, though I'm not hopeful...

GP

[Valarian]

I think I can put the reasons for population density in any region very simply, without having to resort to a lot of maths. Food ... and the availability thereof.

The more food available in a region, the higher the population density.
If food available is greater than the population needs, population increase occurs.
If food available is less than the population needs, population decrease occurs.

People are made of food ... if the food is there, the people will be.

[Patrakis]

Valaarian, i think you played a bit too much at Civilisation 4 ! JK

[Valarian]

Gods, not played Civilisation since the original ...
Fact of life, food makes people. Without food, population decreases.
It's true of any species, why should humans be any different?

[ravells]

Fresh water, I guess is pretty important too. Sanitation (so disease doesn't catch hold) is also important. Employment was also responsible for much urbanisation.

[Steel General]

and here I had thought all along it was directly related to the availability of deep fried hostess twinkies...

Sorry guys couldn't resist

*Please return to your regularly scheduled thread*

[waldronate]

I found the development of city (governmental) locations interesting as it seems the same as a vonoroi development.

A Voronoi diagram shows which parts of a plane are closest to a point (all points within a polygon are closer to the polygon control point than to any other). As such you would expect it to appear in areas where one point is exerting control.

The Delaunay diagram is closely related and will generally show road candidates.

http://www.cs.cornell.edu/Info/Peopl.../Delaunay.html is a fun toy for playing with Voronoi and Delaunay diagrams for those who are unfamiliar with the concepts.

[Redrobes]

If you have been watching the Olympics then the swimming pool roof looks a lot like a nice example of a voronoi mesh.

Ok, well I thought so anyway, incorrigible geek that I am

Edit -- Piccy !

http://z.about.com/d/swimming/1/0/4/...ng79285667.jpg
http://beijingolympic2008.files.word...4061450085.jpg

[waldronate]

I was telling my wife a little white lie that the ceiling was done that way to avoid aliasing artifacts on the video. While it does reduce the artifacts, the big separators did much more for that purpose than just the shape.