Kisah Semut dan Matematik

Ants are small size creatures created by Allah S.W.T. There are many positive qualities that we can take from these little creatures of God for use in our daily life. Among the positive qualities of ants are hardworking, the spirit of cooperation, willingness to sacrifice for the sake of the colony, doing work in a very orderly manner, not giving up to solve problems.

The positive nature of this ant and use it as a research idea to solve a problem. The area of mathematics that takes on the positive nature of ants is called ‘ant colony optimization’ (ACO). As we know, ants are small creatures of God who are good at solving a problem such as finding a safe place, making self-adaptations according to environmental conditions, intelligent to find the closest food near the colony and others. It is these positive qualities of ants that are taken by some mathematicians and translated into a mathematical formula. This mathematical algorithm called ‘ant colony optimization’ (ACO) is used to find the best solution to a problem related to routes and logistics.

Ant colony optimization (ACO) in the mathematics field has been widely applied to real human life problems in the field of logistics related to aviation, shipping, trade and many more. For example, a bakery company needs to find the optimal route for the delivery of bread nationwide to maximize its profits and this bread delivery problem can be solved by applying mathematical methods such as ‘ant colony optimization’ (ACO). By applying the ‘ant colony optimization’ (ACO) method, the bread producers will be able to reduce the cost of delivering their bread and at the same time be able to maximize the profits earned. Many journals and research work related to this ‘ant colony optimization’ (ACO) have been published all over the world and indeed the mathematical knowledge is very broad and covers mostly existing fields.

Prepared by,

Dr Azfi Zaidi bin Mohammad Sofi