A straightforward proof of the critical value in the Hegselmann-Krause model: up to one-half

Abstract: In the Hegselmann-Krause model, an agent updates its opinion by averaging with others whose opinions differ by at most a given confidence threshold. With agents' initial opinions uniformly distributed on the unit interval, we provide a straightforward proof that establishes the critical value is up to one-half. This implies that the probability of consensus approaches one as the number of agents tends to infinity for confidence thresholds larger than or equal to one-half.