3 research outputs found
Maze solvers demystified and some other thoughts
There is a growing interest towards implementation of maze solving in
spatially-extended physical, chemical and living systems. Several reports of
prototypes attracted great publicity, e.g. maze solving with slime mould and
epithelial cells, maze navigating droplets. We show that most prototypes
utilise one of two phenomena: a shortest path in a maze is a path of the least
resistance for fluid and current flow, and a shortest path is a path of the
steepest gradient of chemoattractants. We discuss that substrates with
so-called maze-solving capabilities simply trace flow currents or chemical
diffusion gradients. We illustrate our thoughts with a model of flow and
experiments with slime mould. The chapter ends with a discussion of experiments
on maze solving with plant roots and leeches which show limitations of the
chemical diffusion maze-solving approach.Comment: This is a preliminary version of the chapter to be published in
Adamatzky A. (Ed.) Shortest path solvers. From software to wetware. Springer,
201