TITLE:
Social Distancing via Coulomb’s Law
AUTHORS:
Patrick R. McMullen
KEYWORDS:
Optimization, Heuristic, Coulomb’s Law
JOURNAL NAME:
Applied Mathematics,
Vol.11 No.7,
July
9,
2020
ABSTRACT: This research effort addresses the social-distancing problem. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, we’ve learned the importance of keeping proper distance, so as to avoid (or minimize) the spread of infection. For this paper, individuals are represented as positively-charged particles, behaving in accordance with Coulomb’s Law. Additionally, negatively-charged stationary (non-moving) particles are positioned such that their attraction to the positively-charged particles guides the movement of the positively-charged particles in a desirable fashion. During a simulation process, Coulomb’s Law guides particle behavior such that the positively-charged particles arrange themselves in a way such that their spacing is essentially optimal. Of course, these positively charged particles can be thought of as a surrogate for individuals, resulting in the optimal spacing of individuals.