Last night I watched Dr. Deborah Gordon’s tech talk about How Ant Colonies Get Things Done. She’s been studying a collection of ant colonies in New Mexico for the past 25 years. That impressive feat of longevity was my biggest takeaway from the talk. 25 years devoted to ants.
As a kid growing up in Illinois, I toyed with ants. I mixed ants from different colonies. I figured out that you could confuse an ant by erasing its scent trail. I sprayed ants with paint. I roasted ants by focusing sunlight with a magnifying glass. I slowed ants by putting them in the fridge. I had a couple ant farms. I submerged ants under water. I dug up colonies outside.
I see Deborah taking that childish curiosity to a professional level. As a computer scientist who also first played with computers at an early age, I find her longevity inspirational.
I’ve also been thinking about how her results might be applied to distributed computing problems. Ant colonies are extremely fault tolorant and highly decentralized. When I design distributed systems I’ll be sure to think about how ant colonies might apply. And if I get tired, I’ll think about how Deborah Gordon keeps on keepin on.
