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Cellular Automata
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Time synchronous Cellular Automata (CA) are ideally suited for parallel
processing, and have been characterized as `embarrassingly easy'
to parallelize.
The abstract CA execution model consists of:
a possibly infinite n-dimensional lattice of cells;
a finite alphabet from which the state of each cell is chosen;
simultaneous update of the state of all cells in the lattice,
independent of one another, in discrete time steps; and
a fixed, uniform transition function that computes the next value of a cell
using the values of
the cells within a fixed distance, or neighborhood, of that cell.
For beginners, a
brief
tutorial might be just the thing. [Answers to a wider range of questions
concerning CA can be found in the
FAQ.]
The Game of Life,
is probably the most popular example of a CA and is also a good place to start
in understanding this form of distributed computation. You might also
want to check out John Elliott's
Isle Ex (a nice Java applet) for playing with some simple CAs or
check out Mirek Wojtowicz's extensive collection of
CA resources.
The related areas of
artificial
life and the modeling of
flocking, schooling,
and herding behavior are also of interest to many CA enthusiasts.
Issues of evolution, so important to alife researchers, are being examined
by the EVCA Group
in their attempts to evolve
CA that tackle complex problems by using non-local communication.
Yet another route to artificial life is to build an
artifical brain.
Scott Ladd has put together a nice Java system,
EvoJava
that's worth checking out.
A number of software and hardware systems have been developed for aiding
CA enthusiasts in their pursuits. Many of the software systems appear
in this
list.
Although it is difficult to determine, which if any, of these
is the most popular, the
Cellular system has enjoyed a number of
users. The system is available on both Windows NT and numerous
UNIX
platforms and provides a compiler for the Cellang CA programming
language in addition to visualization software. Another interesting system,
StarLogo, was developed by
Mitchel Resnick
of the Media
Laboratory at MIT.
The Primordial Soup
Kitchen has a number of interesting images and the rules that generated
them, using the WinCA software system.
As for hardware, the CAM-8, developed by the
Information Mechanics Group at
MIT,
is easily the fastest CA hardware available.
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jde@acm.org
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Last modified 299 weeks 3 days 14 hours 55 minutes ago.
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