Paths of 800 unmanned bicycles being pushed until they fall over

Ye Olde Drain Clog

Pubisycles

It looks a lot like the inverse of flow visualization with smoke or liquid. I guess that's not coincidence?

Not a Physicist, so guessing a little. Both seem turbulent/chaotic systems that rely on the previous state. Each part of a dynamic flow/bike trajectory are small fractals of the initial instability/configuration. A bike is designed to steer straight - counter-steering - while moving, so it is unstable around the line/curve. On the other hand, fluid tend to become unstable at the slightest disturbance and if pushed forward, goes into a oscillating state that breaks up into eddies. I would guess that the bike's forward instability gets exponentially higher at lower speeds, and the bike trajectory lines is not pushed forward as with moving fluid above, so the bike shows another turbulent/chaotic fractal system with a different starting configuration. ..I think ;-)

If this is a Rorschach test, I'm seeing Victorian pubes

it's unexpectedly symmetrical, although i guess the "harmonic" of the bicycle explains that.

Symmetrical up/down? Or do you mean almost periodic right to left?
- well since it's a top-down diagram i guess you can say up/down. but right/left is probably more accurate.
It's entirely expected. The anomalies are going to be on the furthest left and right; Bikes that fall down right away or ones that stay up longest. The average would be the densest area - bikes that performed "okay." The symmetry is also an expected function with the only options for the wheel to turn being left or right.
If these were not standardized releases, meaning, the energy used to push the bike varied from one to the next - say, because a person was pushing them and not a machine with a defined load - then it explains the short vs. long distances, however that would be normalized even with a predefined load and look similar to this... just bigger distances.
- Bikes aren't symmetrical though, with the drive-train to one side, so you'd think there'd be a more noticeable bias in one direction. Guess it's a very minor effect.

That is quite obviously my ear hair.

I want to repost this but make the title

Paths of 800 unsuspecting bicyclists being pushed until they fall over

A personal art project from the ward.

Why does this look like my hair

Are you a bike Medusa?

Neat. How well controlled was the push—did they push them or did a machine?

The upper half has more circular tracks. Wonder if Coriolis forces caused the minor differences.

Almost certainly not, the coriolis effect is so small on this space and time scale it's barely measurable even with advanced equipment.
Edit: also from other comments the bike is virtual anyways lol

800 of the same bicycle

if it was 800 different, you'd get a lot more noise

But how was the bike pushed? Was it pushed by an imperfect human, or by some sort of contraption?

It was done inside a physics simulation.
"It Takes Two Neurons To Ride a Bicycle" | Matthew Cook
- So it's worthless? Not sure how to value virtual simulations of real world physical behaviour when it's used to show something cool.

It's pretty impressive that they pushed the bicycleIt's pretty impressive that they pushed the bicycle to the right 800 times and half the times it went left instantly.

I think they mean to the right like straight from left to right.