The MATH+ campaign motif: The “Math Agent,” originally from the comic “Ida and the Math Agent,” embodies a mathematical model. Here with Sarah Wolf and Kai Nagel at Potsdamer Platz. © BUA
Mrs. Wolf, Mr. Nagel, in the MATH+ campaign motif, a math agent sits on the historic traffic lights at Potsdamer Platz and has to choose between different modes of transport. Why not an agent?
Sarah Wolf: For me, agent is a neutral word, like table. Because our agents are mathematical elements or objects in the computer. They can take on very different roles.
Kai Nagel: In mathematical language, an agent is the description of an acting person who has an internal state and follows certain rules of behavior. With a large number of such agents, we can ultimately simulate a society in the computer, within certain limits of course.
What properties can such an agent have?
Wolf: A colleague always explains this to school classes: "Shoe size and your favorite movie are not important when it comes to mobility, but age, income, place of residence and work, health and even political views are.
Do you also work with school classes?
Wolf: Yes, we combine the agent simulations with an element of citizen participation, for example for schools. The technical term for this is transdisciplinarity, but the BUA campaign's catchphrase “open knowledge lab” would also be very apt.
Nagel: We organize workshops in which people can make political or administrative decisions themselves and then immediately see the effects of these decisions through our simulations. Our topic here is transportation planning.
The aim of these workshops can be to get ideas, for example for new measures. Another goal can be to provide the actual political decision-makers with packages of measures that a large majority of people in our workshops have endorsed.