Evolution of Complexes from LEGO™ Bricks in a Washing Machine

“Evolution of Complexes from LEGO™ Bricks in a Washing Machine“, by Ingo Althöfer, appears in the special Cloning & Evolution issue of the Annals of Improbable Research. (The article is also online.) It begins:

Disclaimers: This work has not been supported by the LEGO Group or any other brick toy company This work has not been sponsored by the Miele domestic appliance and machine manufacturing company. This work has not been supported by the artist Piet Mondrian.

Some people use their washing machine to clean LEGO bricks. No surprise, it works. But more than just cleaning occurs. Typically during the washing process, some of the bricks join together randomly, forming complexes. I observed the phenomenon (see Figure 1), and became curiously obsessed. I spent the next nineteen and a half weeks conducting many brick washing sessions.…