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view/download model file: Buttons4.nlogo
This is a model of the buttons phase transition presented in Stuart Kauffman's book At Home in the Universe. To run the simulation, click "setup" then click "go". Click "go" again to pause the simulation. Use the "buttons" slider to change the number of buttons in the simulation.
Initially
the buttons are randomly placed on the patches. Each step ties a
randomly chosen pair together. This results in isolated pairs for
quite a few steps .. then threes appear, and fours. When the number of
steps is about 1/2 the number of buttons, a rapid rise in the size of
the largest cluster occurs.