[ExI] ants again

[spike]

> > Jump or fall?
> > 
> > spike 

> ...On Behalf Of Kevin Freels
...
> 
> Wait. I am missing something here. How will this determine 
> whether they are jumping or falling? This seems a question of 
> intent. Unless this circle of gak is offset where no ants can 
> fall directly into it and must therefore jump in a specific 
> direction to reach it I don't see how this is supposed to 
> answer the question.Even then, the wind could carry them a bit....

Kevin thanks for your comments on loans.  I want to study up on that
shortly, perhaps after this weekend in which I am preoccupied trying to get
ready for a motorcycle trip and fooling with ants.  I didn't understand the
comment 

> We were getting 112 basis points on 8% 100% self-employed stated with a
580 credit score!

but any reply should be on the AIG bail out thread, not the ant thread. 

I didn't explain the ant experiment very well.  I made a bridge from the
ground to the tree above the gak on the trunk at the base of the tree.  This
allows the tree to get full of ants.  I took a sheet of white paper, taped
it down to a piece of cardboard, made a gak ring 20 cm in diameter, placed
the cardboard on the ground directly below the tree near the trunk.  Ants
immediately began snooping around on the cardboard, but couldn't get inside
the gak ring, which I am referring to as the gak pit.  

My notion is that if ants accidentally fall out of the tree, I should find
several ants inside the gak ring tomorrow even tho the bridge allows them to
go up and down.  If on the other hand, they don't fall, then no ants inside
for they have a bridge to the ground now.  Tomorrow or Sunday, I will take
away the bridge, which will strand the ants in the tree.  I already know
from before (thrice repeated experiment) that after a few days of being
unable to get down the trunk, all the ants are gone from the tree.  Where
did they go?  How did they go?  Did they fall?  Or jump?  

How did they know to jump, if that is what they did?  Did each one think of
that plan by herself?  Did every last one of the ants eventually realize
they should jump in order to get back home?  Why aren't there at least a few
stubborn wacky refuse-to-jump-for-any-reason ants, analogous to our species'
creationists?  They can get both food and water in that tree, and it isn't
cold this time of year, so why don't a few decide to just live in the tree?

If I get no gaked ants while the bridge is in place, then I remove the
bridge and later find a bunch of ants inside the gak pit, then I must
conclude that the ants eventually became desperate to get back home
underground and somehow came up with the idea to leap out of the tree and
float or glide to the ground.  Of these homesick leapers, a few should end
up in the gak pit.  But I don't see how an ant could figure out to jump
outta that tree.  If they do, it indicates a form of rudimentary thought, or
planning.  In a bug!  

I estimate there are somewhere between a thousand and ten thousand ants in a
tree that covers about ten square meters and my gak pit is about three
hundredths of a square meter.  So then about .3% of the leaping ants should
land there accidently, regardless of whether they glide or drop straight
down.  So if they leap, I should eventually see somewhere between about 3
and 30 of the hapless beasts land inside my gak pit.  Ja?  

Countersuggestions?  (Other than: Spike, get a life.)

spike