Accumulation

So on my flight from Salt Lake City to St. Louis (originally from Portland, OR, the connecting flight was from Salt Lake City), I was day dreaming a bit. While listening to On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin, read by Richard Dawkins, I was watching the clouds as we sped by them. The audio book had little influence in my thoughts about accumulation at the time...every once in a while, it seemed more like chatter background for me to think about other topics. However, while watching the clouds, I began to think up a simple model for accumulation. Since I know little about how clouds really form, my mind was free to dream up something whether it be accurate or not. I'll put the comment documentation for my Matlab instance of this model below:

% Model description:

% On a rectangular space, objects move parallel to the length of the

% space. The object's speed depends upon how many units of the objects

% share the same space; this may be thought of as a density dependent

% velocity. Object units may not diverge from others once they occupy the

% same space, and therefore result in the creation of larger objects.

% Geometric spacing and packing is not taken into account in the first

% instance of this model. However, limitations on the number of objects

% occupying a space and the distribution of those excess object units may

% provide a three-dimensional conceptualization of a "super" object drift.

% -Object creation: Objects will be randomly generated based on a

% proportion of the size of the space and/or the number of units in play.

% Once created, the objects will move and may form larger objects.

% Generation of larger objects may be restricted in some instances of this

% model, resulting in "packing" limitations.

% -Velocity determination: There will be a limiting velocity that will

% dictate the lowest rate of movement. The speed will increase for those

% objects with less units.

% -Accumulation restrictions: Once a maximum accumulation of an object in

% a single space is reached, some number of objects in that space may be

% removed.

% -Geometric conception: Distribution of the units may be to place excess

% units coming into a space into an adjacent space which has the least

% number of units. This may be done by searching first the immediate sides

% of the filled space, then the space directly following the filled space.

% Radiating outward in this manner if all immediate spaces are filled may

% result in a wall or object front.

% -Predictions: In the case of no geometric consideration, there should be

% pockets of great accumulation of the digital object units. Given a long

% enough space in which to drift, these pockets should grow very large and

% therefore move at or near the minimal speed allowed. A randomly

% distributed set of these pockets will exist within the space since they

% cannot merge with each other upon reaching the minimal speed. A complete

% occupation of the space may be possible, but very unlikely.