ABSTRACT
Under the term formulas, this chapter investigates complementary strategies in order to describe the dynamics and functions of biological collectives. It examines how, on the basis of patchy empirical data, attempts were made to construct mathematical models concerned with the geometric form of fish schools or with the algorithms of the local behavior of swarm individuals. It thereby follows traces which link biological swarm research to cybernetic ideas of ‘communication’ or ‘information transmission.’ Equipped with a new technical vocabulary, researchers began to describe swarms as ‘systems’ and were able to conceive of them in new ways. Nevertheless, the first approaches to simulating swarm dynamics in the 1970s received little attention, a fact that was likely due to the inability at the time to display dynamic processes visually.
