For me it is Cellular Automata, and more precisely the Game of Life.
Imagine a giant Excel spreadsheet where the cells are randomly chosen to be either “alive” or “dead”. Each cell then follows a handful of simple rules.
For example, if a cell is “alive” but has less than 2 “alive” neighbors it “dies” by under-population. If the cell is “alive” and has more than three “alive” neighbors it “dies” from over-population, etc.
Then you sit back and just watch things play out. It turns out that these basic rules at the individual level lead to incredibly complex behaviors at the community level when you zoom out.
It kinda, sorta, maybe resembles… life.
There is colonization, reproduction, evolution, and sometimes even space flight!
How little food intake is enough to sustain extensive (physical) activity.
The little birds running on the beach with every wave, eating mini things. How can those be enough to sustain that much running? And it’ll have to sustain them when they’re not eating too.
A human can not eat for several days and still stay active. An incredible adaptation. I food conversion, storage, and priority dissolution in a complex system.
I’m looking at my bulging waist and feeling incredibly guilty right now!
I’m looking at my plentiful plate of lasagna with another eyes rn.
I think about this a lot too! It feels wrong that so little material can allow so much work to be done. Feels like moving a mars bar should take a significant amount of the mars bars energy to move stuff around, but you could do a lap around the block and still not deplete what it gave.