Cellular Automata

Several days ago, I read an entry about Cellular Automation in Wikipedia, which links to a page titled Conway's Game of Life. In that page I learned that there is a simple rule in Cellular Automation, capable of generating complex pattern. Since I had been interested in the concept for a long time, I made the program yesterday (April 1st 2008).

There are many rules, which can be used in a Cellular Automation program. A Cellular Automation's rule have to mention what neighborhood condition should be fulfilled, to make a cell born, unchanged, or dies. The image above for example, is generated using rule 1/1, which means that for each cell, having one neighbor is going to come to life, but will die of loneliness if it have no neighbor, or die of overcrowd if it have more than one neighbor.

You can see the lexicon of rules, and the possible outcome in this Index of Rule.

Gosper's Glider Gun (Rule 23/3)

One of the pattern in Cellular Automation that I'm fond of is Gosper's Glider Gun which use Rule 23/3. The Gun, continuously produce a glider, which is a pattern capable of traversing the map. Since the glider is going to leave away, as soon as its pattern emerged from the reaction in a Gosper's Glider Gun, the Gun appear to shoot, with a glider as its ammunition.

I used Gosper's Glider Gun, to make a pattern consisting of 16 Gosper's Glider Guns, to make a Collider above. The collision between glider are unpredictable. Sometimes they explosively annihilate, sometimes they calmly annihilate, depend on how they collide.

The Collider is not stable, it will slowly degenerate itself to become the pattern above. The pattern above consist of only p1-oscillator and still lives. ( For definition of p1-oscillator and still lives, see this
Lexicon Of Life ).

I had made the X-Collider above as well, using 16 Gosper's Glider Guns in 4 different phase. The X-Collider, will continue to make a lot of glider collisions, and exhibit chaotic behavior. Whether these will result in degeneration or oscillation, is yet unknown. I haven't tried to play it long enough.

By merging different pattern I found in this Lexicon Of Life, I made the Space station above from components such as gliders, glider duplicators, octagon IIs,
octagon IVs, non-monotonic spaceships, and sparky spaceships. ( See the definition of each component in the Lexicon Of Life )

Download Cellular Automata Installer here.

Credits