When we plan a walk, we usually do it very consciously: we want to get from point A to point B and we then take the shortest road, the fasted road, the scenic route, the road that also passes by our favorite café…
How would a completely random walk look like, what if at each intersection we let “fate” determine in which direction we go? Where does that take us? No GPS is capable of planning such a completely random trip: moving around must apparently always have a purpose…
Ralph Waldo Emmerson knew at the time: “Life is about the journey, not the destination”. In life we are constantly trying to achieve goals, when one goal is achieved we immediately set ourselves a new goal. While it is not those goals that make life fascinating, but the journey to achieve those goals.
A random walk is a mathematical formalization of a trajectory consisting of successive random steps. The results of random motion analysis find application in computer science, physics, ecology, economics and a number of other fields as a fundamental model for random processes over time. For example, the path followed by a molecule as this molecule moves in a liquid or a gas, the search path of a foraging animal, the price of fluctuating stock, and the financial status of a gambler can all be modeled as random movements. (source: Wikipedia).
This random walk is based on that theoretical model and started on 30 March 2021. The tour is documented by taking a photo at each intersection. What was photographed is objective what can be seen there, but the choice of image, the viewpoint is a decision of the photographer: it represents reality seen through the photographer’s eye. The reportage thus gives a subjective picture of the journey.
Presented here are 8 consecutive random walks, with the end point of each hike being the starting point of the next hike. I started on March 30, 2021 and the last walk was on May 11, 2021. A total of 51.50 km was covered, but I only landed 3.87 km from my starting point.