View source for Cellular automaton (nonfiction)

[[File:Rule_90_trees.svg|300px|thumb|Rule 90: a forest of stunted trees.]]A '''cellular automaton''' (pl. '''cellular automata''', abbrev. '''CA''') is a discrete model studied in computability theory, [[Mathematics (nonfiction)|mathematics]], physics, complexity science, theoretical biology and microstructure modeling.

Cellular automata are also called cellular spaces, tessellation automata, homogeneous structures, cellular structures, tessellation structures, and iterative arrays.

A cellular automaton consists of a regular grid of cells, each in one of a finite number of states, such as on and off.

The concept was originally discovered in the 1940s by [[Stanislaw Ulam (nonfiction)|Stanislaw Ulam]] and [[John von Neumann (nonfiction)|John von Neumann]] while they were contemporaries at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

While studied by some throughout the 1950s and 1960s, it was not until the 1970s and Conway's Game of Life, a two-dimensional cellular automaton, that interest in the subject expanded beyond academia.

In the 1980s, Stephen Wolfram engaged in a systematic study of one-dimensional cellular automata, or what he calls elementary cellular automata; his research assistant Matthew Cook showed that one of these rules is [[Turing completeness (nonfiction)|Turing-complete]].

== In the News ==

<gallery>
Bernoulli_wappen.png|link=Bernoulli family (nonfiction)|Latest version of [[Bernoulli family (nonfiction)|Bernoulli family tree]] powered by cellular automata.
</gallery>

== Fiction cross-reference ==

* [[Battle Cry of the Cellular Automata]]
* [[John von Neumann (nonfiction)]]
* [[Mathematics]]

== Nonfiction cross-reference ==

* [[Firing squad synchronization problem (nonfiction)]] - a cellular automaton that, starting with a single active cell, eventually reaches a state in which all cells are simultaneously active
* [[Garden of Eden (mathematics) (nonfiction)]] - a cellular automaton configuration that has no predecessor
* [[Golly (program) (nonfiction)]]
* [[Stanislaw Ulam (nonfiction)]]
* [[Turing completeness (nonfiction)]]
* [[Von Neumann neighborhood (nonfiction)]]

External links:

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_automaton Cellular automaton] @ Wikipedia

[[Category:Nonfiction (nonfiction)]]
[[Category:Cellular automata (nonfiction)]]
[[Category:Mathematics (nonfiction)]]