Theory 16/Collective behaviour
Dance Precision Is Duration
The claim
Forager error in a honeybee colony is set by the ratio of waggle duration to distance, so accuracy degrades with distance because the code is linear while the error is not.
01Mechanism
Distance is encoded in waggle duration; both the signal and its noise grow with distance, and the ratio determines the usable range.
02Predictions
- P1Error should grow with distance as a ratio.
- P2Waggle duration alone should mispredict.
03Refutation
Error independent of distance would remove the encoding.
04Why it resists the grid
An abstract symbol system — duration for distance, angle for bearing — in an insect, which fits no functional category.