LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Cellular Automaton: Rules
built 273 days ago
In the 1970s a two-state, two-dimensional cellular automaton named Game of Life became very widely known, particularly among the early computing community. Invented by John Conway, and popularized by Martin Gardner in a Scientific American article, its rules are as follows: If a black cell has 2 or 3 black neighbors, it stays black. If a white cell has 3 black neighbors, it becomes black. In all other cases, the cell stays or becomes white. Despite its simplicity, the system achieves an impressive diversity of behavior, fluctuating between apparent randomness and order. One of the most apparent features of the Game of Life is the frequent occurrence of gliders, arrangements of cells that essentially move themselves across the grid.
Source:
[ Figure 3 ] Pattern generated by a one-dimensional cellular automaton with two possible values at each site, and rule ), starting from a single nonzero site. Despite the simplicity of its specification, many aspects of the pattern seem random. For example, the center column of site values passes all standard statistical tests of randomness. This cellular automaton illustrates the rather general phenomenon that simple processes can lead to complexity that is so great that many aspects of it seem random.
Source:
A review of cellular automaton fluids, which are the class of cellular automata used in describing fluids. Cellular automaton fluids are discrete analogs of molecular dynamics in which the particles have discrete velocities and move on the sites of a lattice according to some rule of evolution. Two-dimensional fluids are considered, with some comments regarding models for fluids in 3 dimensions. Analytical and numerical simulation results, including some on the wake behind a cylinder, are discussed for the 2-dimensional cellular automaton (CA) models. Some issues are discussed that need resolution before the models can be used in practical simulations.
Source:
A cellular automaton is a group of cells that evolves only by nearest neighbor interaction. They are thought to be able to represent the evolution of living organisms and minerals. In one dimension, the cells are a line of points. Each point has a value, represented by a color. The evolution of each point is determined by its value and by the value of the neighboring points. By setting some simple rules for evolution, and picturing the evolution of the line of cells, it is possible to obtain very complex and beautiful patterns.
Source:
A cellular automaton is a discrete dynamical system. Space, time, and the states of the system are discrete. Each point in a regular spatial lattice, called a cell, can have any one of a finite number of states. The states of the cells in the lattice are updated according to a local rule. That is, the state of a cell at a given time depends only on its own state one time step previously, and the states of its nearby neighbors at the previous time step. All cells on the lattice are updated synchronously.
Source:
Sometimes it is possible to examine the state of a cellular automaton, and deduce the previous state. If the rules ensure that this is always possible, then the CA is called reversible. Given the rules, there is no general way to tell whether the CA is reversible. Jarkko Kari proved that this is undecidable for CAs with two or more dimensions. For CAs with one dimension, it is decidable.
Source:
MORE ABOUT
Rules