Magnetic Landscapes
The landscape is the world the bug navigates — a 2D magnetic field environment that models the Earth’s geomagnetic field plus geological anomalies. The uniform geomagnetic field provides the compass signal; the anomalies test the compass’s robustness. Geomagnetic Background The background field is characterised by: Declination — the angle between geographic and magnetic north Inclination — the dip angle (how steeply field lines plunge into the Earth) Total intensity — ~50 μT at mid-latitudes An inclination compass (like the radical-pair mechanism) measures the angle between the field and the local vertical, not the field direction. This means it cannot distinguish north from south — it detects the axis, not the polarity. ...