In Search of the Optimal Scumsucking Bottomfeeder
Brian Hayes · American Scientist · 2003
Five years ago a column in this series titled “How to Avoid Yourself ” described the geometry of paths traced out by a random walker who refuses to set foot in the same place twice. Soon after the article appeared, I received a letter from Mark A. Wilson of the College of Wooster, who pointed out that some of my computer-generated paths were anticipated by millions of years in the fossil record of early life. He referred me to the Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology, an immense multivolume work sponsored by the Geological Society of America. Specifically, I was directed to Part W, Miscellanea, and within