Editing Alignments of random points (section)

== Computer simulation of alignments ==
[[image:leylines.png|thumb|300px|right|607 4-point alignments of 269 random points]]
[[Computer simulation]]s show that points on a plane tend to form alignments similar to those found by ley hunters in numbers consistent with the order-of-magnitude estimates above, suggesting that ley lines may also be generated by chance. This phenomenon occurs regardless of whether the points are generated pseudo-randomly by computer, or from data sets of mundane features such as [[pizza]] [[restaurant]]s or [[telephone booth]]s.

On a map with a width of tens of kilometers, it is easy to find alignments of 4 to 8 points even in relatively small sets of features with ''w'' = 50 m. Choosing larger areas, denser sets of features, or larger values of ''w'' makes it easy to find alignments of 20 or more points.