Daisyworld is seeded with two varieties of daisy as its only life forms: black daisies and white daisies.

It’s fascinating to see how just these 2 life forms can have such a positive impact!

As a simulation of a hypothetical world, it’s is meant to mimic important elements of the Earth-Sun system.

We first learned about it in a 1983 paper by James Lovelock and Andrew Watson. It was created to show how the Gaia hypothesis was possible.

White-petaled daisies reflected light, while black-petaled daisies absorbed light. These two different colors (or different Albedos) could alter the temperature of the surface. However, they also were responsible for stabilizing the temperature of the planet.