Tuesday, September 07, 2010

Google's animation today

Google's annoying unusual bouncing-balls animation caused some buzz this morning. In the Washington Post, it was suggested that it celebrates the 12th anniversary of Google's founding or the 15th anniversary of Javascript.

I wonder if it celebrates the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm/ Markov chain method? It looks like the location of each ball is being randomized and then bounces around its natural position. Towards the end, the x and y error (perturbation away from the natural position) of each ball would look like a fuzzy caterpillar if plotted against time.

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