World3, the public beta
Forty years ago I had my first close encounter with mathematical models of doomsday. The Limits to Growth, published in the spring of 1972, offered a grim vision of environmental and economic collapse, based on the implacable logic of a computer simulation called World3. For extra nerd-cred authenticity, the results of the simulation were set forth in crude black-and-white graphs reproduced directly from line-printer output.
I wrote about The Limits to Growth and World3 back in 1993. Now I have revisited the subject in my newly published American Scientist column. Buried deep within the new column is a note mentioning that I’ve been working to re-implement the World3 model in JavaScript. “The result of this exercise is at http://bit-player.org/limits,” the column says.
If you follow that link, you’ll find it’s true: There’s a rudimentary version of the model you can play with (if you have the right browser). [Update 2020-08-19: The source code for the model is on GitHub.]
