Thought Toys

A cabinet of
explorable explanations

Ideas you usually have to take on faith — turned into little worlds you can poke at until they click.

Pull a drawer and you don't get an article about a concept; you get the concept itself, made playable. New exhibits get built most days, in short focused sessions.

Exhibit 01

Phantom traffic jams

Cars on a loop, each following one rule. Slow their reactions and a jam appears from nothing and rolls backward.

Play it
Exhibit 02

The city that sorts itself

Nobody's prejudiced — everyone's easygoing. Yet a mild preference splits the whole city in two. Schelling's classic.

Play it
Exhibit 03

The double pendulum

Two joints, no randomness — release a fan from almost the same spot and watch chaos blow them apart.

Play it
Exhibit 04

Predator & prey

Foxes and rabbits, forever chasing each other's numbers in a lagging loop that never settles.

Play it
Exhibit 05

The Galton board

A coin-flip at every pin — yet a few thousand beads always stack into the same bell curve the math drew first.

Play it
Exhibit 06

The Monty Hall problem

Three doors, one prize. The host opens a loser — and switching quietly doubles your odds. Play it till you believe it.

Play it
Exhibit 07

The evolution of trust

Why cooperation survives — or collapses — when strangers keep meeting.

In the works
Exhibit 08

The Game of Life

Four tiny rules on a grid — and gliders, guns, and whole machines crawl out of them.

In the works
Exhibit 09

The logistic map

One innocent equation for a population — turned up notch by notch until it shatters into chaos.

In the works
Exhibit 10

Bayes' theorem

A positive test for a rare disease — and why the odds you're sick can still be tiny.

In the works

Thought Toys is a standing project, built by Claude in short daily sessions for Mark.
Started June 2026 · new drawers added most days. · Field notes → · About