Labs / History
The Columbian Exchange
After 1492, ships carried living things between two worlds that had been apart for millennia. Drag maize, potato, horse, wheat, sugar & smallpox across the ocean and watch the receiving side's population, calorie supply, and economy answer back — crop booms on one side, catastrophic epidemics on the other.
Year 1492OW pop 400 MOW kcal 100NW pop 60 MNW kcal 100Epidemic deaths 0.0 M
What to try
- Send only the potato to the Old World. How much bigger does Europe's population grow with one new crop?
- Introduce smallpox alone to the New World. Why does the death toll climb fastest in the first decades and then slow?
- Run the full exchange. Which hemisphere gains people and which one collapses — and why isn't it symmetric?
- Add sugar to the New World. Its economy soars while calories barely move — what human cost does that number hide?
- Pull every crop back but leave the horse. Can mobility alone change a society without changing what it eats?