Overview

Cellular automata are an example of soft artificial life. Your first assignment will be creating a cellular automaton and the preparation for today is focused on getting familiar with the history and basis for this area.

Basic Learning Objectives

Before class, you should be able to:

  • Explain what a basic cellular automaton is
  • Explain what Conway’s Game of Life is
  • Explain what the glider pattern is

Advanced Learning Objectives

After class, you should be able to:

  • Write a program that supports a toroidal spatial structure
  • Use the Empirical library to visually display a grid
  • Start on the cellular automata assignment

Reading

The following are resources that I think will help you achieve the basic learning objectives. Remember that you can also interact with Gemini but you should check the answers provided.

  • 3.1 of Biological Bits
  • Complexity Ch 10 (at least up to ‘Wolfram’s “New Kind of Science”’, though you may find the last section interesting)
  • Play Game of Life interactive website

Checks

Submit answers to the following on Moodle:

  • What is a cellular automata?
  • What is Conway’s Game of Life and what are the rules?
  • What’s special about the “glider” pattern?