We examine the problem of locating many sources in service of many sinks distributed throughout a region. We first treat the prosocial version: Give the natural uneveneness of population density, how do we locate facilities so as to minimize the average distance between an individual and the facility nearest to them? The problem is NP complete but can be handled approximately in theory and in simulation, and we retrace the paths of travellers from diverse disciplines. We also take a detour into cartograms. Prelude: The evolution of language---the half lives of the past tenses of irregular verbs.

The evolution of language---the half lives of the past tenses of irregular verbs.

2016/02/11

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