Quotes
Quotes about the author
"In fact, the technique can be applied to any complex interactive system such as biological cells, currency markets, or ecosystems." Sheryl Canter PC Magazine (May 1996)
"Dr. Keith Still is a rare breed: a creative mathematician. As such, he is one of the few pure mathematicians who I believe can actually develop applications that cross disciplines. His work in crowd flow has many similar characteristics to market trading, as well as some significant differences. Dr. Still has the ability to leverage the similarities with his earlier work, and work through the problems of the new application. I have always been impressed with his insight into new problems, and expect that he can develop workable solutions to most problems once he sets his mind to it." Edgar E. Peters Chief Investment Officer PanAgora Asset Management Author, "Chaos and Order in the Capital Markets" Any opinions expressed are my own, and not the view of PanAgora Asset Management. (EEP 2002)
Dr. Still, Professor Benoit Mandelbrot and Nick Gogerty. February 2001.
"To: Keith, who will make me keener than ever to avoid being crushed by a crowd, with best regards, Benoit Mandelbrot" Inscription in Mandelbrot's book (Fractal Scaling in Finance), written after a conference at which Keith demonstrated the dynamics of crowds in Financial Markets. February 2001.
"His intuition for subtle patterns of behaviour in complex data is impressive, the best I've ever seen." Prof. Ian Stewart (Fellow of the Royal Society 1998).
"Still, who is doing a PhD on the mathematics of large scale interactive systems, exhibited at the Royal Society sparking off interest from both academia and industry." Sean Blair (Focus Magazine - "The secret life of crowds") June 1996
"Almost by fluke Keith Still, a physicist, found that a computer model he created to predict the flow of crowds at Wembley stadium can also predict the behaviour of financial traders. He, and investors now chasing him, stand to make fortunes if he is right:" Richard Woods (Sunday Times - Front page - July 7th 1996) article about the emergent behaviour of the financial markets.
"More importantly, it seems to me that what you were generating is something much more impressive than orchids. What you're really showing is views of our galaxy, in the far future when we've had time to do a little landscape gardening." Arthur C. Clarke (Nov 1994)
"Still is what I term an 'intuitive mathematician'. He is a constant source of original ideas, and a number of these have already formed the basis of commercial products and activities. He is one of the most creative and original thinkers that I know. He has a pleasant, friendly disposition, and works well with other creative scientists; he adds drive and determination, as well as considerable intellectual power, to any group of which he is a part." Prof. Ian Stewart (Fellow of the Royal Society 1998).
"I know who you are......you're Hari Seldon...." Jack Cohen (co-author of "Collapse of Chaos")
From Crowd Dynamics Workshop - Northern Ireland June 2008 Many thanks for the course & content 9th / 10th June in Greenmount. This was singularly the most informative and impactive course I have ever attended. Your depth of knowledge, experience and delivery style was second to none. Will help me further in my career. Will be an excellent assistance in my day to day work at events and sports venues. Opened eyes to deal with a number of potentially difficult situations in a much more simplified manner. This is a really fantastic course which leads on from my existing knowledge. Calculations on exiting/queuing very useful. Look forward to the Advanced course!! (Good to give those on this course priority.) Looking at problems simply instead of taking in too much detail. Calculations for ingress and egress. Huge benefit putting method/practice into easily understandable lessons. Provided excellent information and practical advice on dynamic crowd risk assessments. Calculations v helpful. Will be able to put it into practice. It will allow me to assess plans for events more logically, with some science and modelling behind my thinking. I will be able to apply lessons learned to all the roles I am involved with and bring an enhanced professionalism to those roles. Giving me a greater insight into the way crowd dynamics work with formulas to explain to commanders both at planning and operational levels. Very useful re DIM ICE and how to look at the simple way to solve Crowd Control issues. First class course. Keith’s delivery is first class and put across his points in a very approachable and understandable manner. Excellent course – best yet! Tutor has been there and done that – spoke with authority. Keith was very good tutor, excellent. Excellent course – highly recommended. Learnt a hell of a lot. V skilful and knowledgeable delivery by Prof Still. Very worthwhile course. Thanks! This course is top class and is delivered in a first class manner by an industry professional at the forefront of his subject. I really enjoyed this course. Great delivery of the course by Keith. From Gwynedd and Mid Wales Events Symposium. March 2008 Many thanks for such a delightful and effective presentation on crowd dynamics and control - the way you reinforced the key messages with the verbal, text, visual and anecdotal formats was just fab! It will certainly stay in people's minds and ensure that they do not forget this crucial element of Health and Safety when planning their events. People had been told how good you were, so it was good that you lived up to expectations! From the Cabinet Office Crowd Dynamics Workshop February 2008 This has been an excellent course amongst the best I have attended at the Emergency Planning College. The content strikes the right balance of theory with practical experience for case studies. I would definitely recommend it to others involved in events planning. |
PC Magazine -- 4/1/1996
Programming Crowd Behaviour: Point and Run--Sheryl Canter
Math whiz studies flocks of birds and Wembley Stadium for programming.
The ability to do repetitive tasks at lightning speeds makes computers seem omnipotent--leave them crunching away at a problem at the end of the day and they'll come up with a solution. Research scientists, however, have discovered some problems that are simply impossible to solve with traditional techniques, no matter how big or fast a computer may be. Such a problem occurs when the number of elements to analyze is very large, because a program must consider every possible situation. Modelling the movements of crowds at a stadium, for example, poses two potential difficulties: You must provide to the computer knowledge of every contingency and, if the number of possibilities is large, you may have to wait literally forever for the solution to be computed.
Scottish mathematician G. Keith Still, who studies crowd dynamics, has invented some powerful and efficient programming techniques to deal with this problem. Still's approach, which he calls "entity-oriented programming," couples a virtual-reality landscape based on dynamic fractal calculations with self-aware entities that can react to the landscape as well as to one another. He then encodes the rules that govern how systems operate, rather than the behaviour of each individual element. Still has developed a library of routines called Legion to implement this technique. "We program in simple rules and let the system replicate, evolve, and grow. What happens is awesome when you first see it-you get emergent behaviour, something for nothing," says Still.
With entity-oriented programming, the problem shifts from determining all possibilities to determining the rules that give rise to complex behaviour. "For example, a simple set of rules can model a flock of birds," explains Still. "To create birds, we need three rules: Match speeds with the nearest neighbour, maintain a minimum distance from the nearest neighbour, and try very hard to get to the centre of the flock. When we do this, the birds display all the characteristics of a flock of living birds--swooping, dividing around solid objects, and reforming again--a whole range of complex behaviour from a few simple rules."
Still's company, Crowd Dynamics Limited, applies these techniques to crowd management, entrance and exit design for buildings, and barrier design for minimizing bottlenecks for London's Wembley Stadium and other clients. The rules governing the behaviour of a crowd trying to get through an exit are even simpler than for a flock of birds. Each person wants to get through the door in the shortest time, following the shortest route. That's programmed with two simple rules: point and run.
Legion can be applied to more than just crowd control. Still also has had success using it to model financial markets, and he is working on encryption and compression applications. In fact, the technique can be applied to any complex interactive system such as biological cells, currency markets, or ecosystems.
PC Magazine -- May 28, 1996
Programming Crowd Control--Sheryl Canter
Math whiz studies crowd dynamics at Wembley Stadium.
The ability to do repetitive tasks at lightning speeds makes computers seem omnipotent: leave them crunching away at a problem at the end of the day and they'll come up with a solution overnight. Research scientists, however, have discovered some problems that are simply impossible to solve with traditional techniques, no matter how big or fast the computer.
Such a problem occurs when the number of elements to analyze is very large, because a program must consider every possible situation. Modelling the movements of crowds at a stadium, for example, poses two difficulties: You must provide to the computer knowledge of every contingency, and if the number of possibilities is large, you may have to wait literally forever for the solution.
G. Keith Still, a Scottish mathematician who studies crowd dynamics, has invented some powerful programming techniques to deal with this problem. Still's approach, which he calls "entity-oriented programming," couples a virtual-reality landscape based on dynamic fractal calculations with self-aware entities that can react to the landscape and to one another. He then encodes the rules that govern how systems operate, rather than the behaviour of each individual element.
Still has developed a library of routines, called Legion, to implement this technique. "We program in simple rules and let the system replicate, evolve, and grow. What happens is awesome when you first see it--you get emergent behaviour," says Still.
With entity-oriented programming, the problem shifts from determining all possibilities to determining the rules that give rise to complex behaviour. "For example, a simple set of rules can model a flock of birds," explains Still. "To create birds, we need three rules: match speeds with the nearest neighbour, maintain a minimum distance from the nearest neighbour, and try very hard to get to the centre of the flock. When we do this, the birds behave like a flock of live birds--swooping, dividing around solid objects, reforming again--a whole range of complex behaviour from a few simple rules."
Still's own company, Crowd Dynamics Limited--applies these techniques to crowd management, entrance and exit design for buildings, and barrier design for minimizing bottlenecks for London's Wembley Stadium and other clients.
Still has also had success using his algorithms to model financial markets, and he's working on encryption and compression applications. In fact, the technique can be applied to any complex interactive system, such as biological cells, currency markets, or ecosystems.
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