Smart Fun, part two: walking drunk and related concerns

You'd think that this little, pointless exercise in seeing how far you can get a drunk guy to walk before he falls over is, though significantly amusing, more than vaguely familiar, and surprisingly challenging, little more than an exercise in, um, pointlessness. Howsomever, as my scientifically informed correspondent Ianus Keller gleefully points out, it's more. Far more.

It is in fact a demonstration of Control Theory. I quote from the aforementioned:

Some machines are easy to control, others are difficult. As a child we learn how to point in the direction of something we want, and we can do that without difficulty. But landing a helicopter on a helipad takes extensive skill and training...Control theory is a branch of science that deals with questions like when and how hard should the driver of a train apply the brakes in order to halt at the precise spot at the platform. Continuous control systems...are characterized by their order. A finding with important implications for interface designers is that people can be good at controlling positions, velocities, and accelerations. Technically these are known as zeroeth, first, and second order control systems, respectively. Beyond second order, things get very difficult indeed.

For a playworthy, but significantly less playful demonstration of control theory, see this little demo.

Getting these links from Ianus right before I posted yesterday's piece on the mathematical depths of the Simpsons is a dip beyond serendipity - as instructional about the nature of fun as it is about the experience of learning.