This book addresses the intellectual foundations, function, modeling approaches and complexity of cellular automata; explores cellular automata in combination with genetic algorithms, neural networks and agents; and discusses the applications of cellular automata in economics, traffic and the spread of disease. Pursuing a blended approach between knowledge and philosophy, it assigns equal value to methods and applications.
The thirty four contributions in this book cover many aspects of contemporary studies on cellular automata and include reviews, research reports, and guides to recent literature and available software. Cellular automata, dynamic systems in which space and time are discrete, are yielding interesting applications in both the physical and natural sciences. The thirty four contributions in this book cover many aspects of contemporary studies on cellular automata and include reviews, research reports, and guides to recent literature and available software. Chapters cover mathematical analysis, the structure of the space of cellular automata, learning rules with specified properties: cellular automata in biology, physics, chemistry, and computation theory; and generalizations of cellular automata in neural nets, Boolean nets, and coupled map lattices.Current work on cellular automata may be viewed as revolving around two central and closely related problems: the forward problem and the inverse problem. The forward problem concerns the description of properties of given cellular automata. Properties considered include reversibility, invariants, criticality, fractal dimension, and computational power. The role of cellular automata in computation theory is seen as a particularly exciting venue for exploring parallel computers as theoretical and practical tools in mathematical physics. The inverse problem, an area of study gaining prominence particularly in the natural sciences, involves designing rules that possess specified properties or perform specified task. A long-term goal is to develop a set of techniques that can find a rule or set of rules that can reproduce quantitative observations of a physical system. Studies of the inverse problem take up the organization and structure of the set of automata, in particular the parameterization of the space of cellular automata. Optimization and learning techniques, like the genetic algorithm and adaptive stochastic cellular automata are applied to find cellular automaton rules that model such physical phenomena as crystal growth or perform such adaptive-learning tasks as balancing an inverted pole.Howard Gutowitz is Collaborateur in the Service de Physique du Solide et Résonance Magnetique, Commissariat a I'Energie Atomique, Saclay, France.
Cellular Automata Transforms describes a new approach to using the dynamical system, popularly known as cellular automata (CA), as a tool for conducting transforms on data. Cellular automata have generated a great deal of interest since the early 1960s when John Conway created the `Game of Life'. This book takes a more serious look at CA by describing methods by which information building blocks, called basis functions (or bases), can be generated from the evolving states. These information blocks can then be used to construct any data. A typical dynamical system such as CA tend to involve an infinite possibilities of rules that define the inherent elements, neighborhood size, shape, number of states, and modes of association, etc. To be able to build these building blocks an elegant method had to be developed to address a large subset of these rules. A new formula, which allows for the definition a large subset of possible rules, is described in the book. The robustness of this formula allows searching of the CA rule space in order to develop applications for multimedia compression, data encryption and process modeling. Cellular Automata Transforms is divided into two parts. In Part I the fundamentals of cellular automata, including the history and traditional applications are outlined. The challenges faced in using CA to solve practical problems are described. The basic theory behind Cellular Automata Transforms (CAT) is developed in this part of the book. Techniques by which the evolving states of a cellular automaton can be converted into information building blocks are taught. The methods (including fast convolutions) by which forward and inverse transforms of any data can be achieved are also presented. Part II contains a description of applications of CAT. Chapter 4 describes digital image compression, audio compression and synthetic audio generation, three approaches for compressing video data. Chapter 5 contains both symmetric and public-key implementation of CAT encryption. Possible methods of attack are also outlined. Chapter 6 looks at process modeling by solving differential and integral equations. Examples are drawn from physics and fluid dynamics.
This book presents the deterministic view of quantum mechanics developed by Nobel Laureate Gerard 't Hooft. Dissatisfied with the uncomfortable gaps in the way conventional quantum mechanics meshes with the classical world, 't Hooft has revived the old hidden variable ideas, but now in a much more systematic way than usual. In this, quantum mechanics is viewed as a tool rather than a theory. The author gives examples of models that are classical in essence, but can be analysed by the use of quantum techniques, and argues that even the Standard Model, together with gravitational interactions, might be viewed as a quantum mechanical approach to analysing a system that could be classical at its core. He shows how this approach, even though it is based on hidden variables, can be plausibly reconciled with Bell's theorem, and how the usual objections voiced against the idea of ‘superdeterminism' can be overcome, at least in principle. This framework elegantly explains - and automatically cures - the problems of the wave function collapse and the measurement problem. Even the existence of an “arrow of time" can perhaps be explained in a more elegant way than usual. As well as reviewing the author’s earlier work in the field, the book also contains many new observations and calculations. It provides stimulating reading for all physicists working on the foundations of quantum theory.
This book contains all full papers presented at ACRI 2000, the Fourth International Conference on Cellular Automata for Research and Industry, held at the University of Karlsruhe (Germany), 4 - 6 October, 2000. The continuation of and growing interest in research on Cellular Automata models for real world phenomena indicates the feasibility of this approach. A quick glance at the table contents of this book shows that results came from such different areas as biology, economics, physics, traffic flow and urban development. This work is complemented by contributions on the implementation and evaluation of software for Cellular Automata simulation, which is a necessary (but of course in no way sufficient) ingredient for the successful application of Cellular Automata. Applying Cellular Automata without trying to understand their behavior, in depth would be an unfortunate development. But as properties and power in earlier years it was again one of the strong points of ACRI to bring together researchers not only from different application areas but also from theory. Of course, this is reflected by the list of accepted contributions which also comprise theoretical papers and even papers which certainly belong to the intersection of several fields. Examples are the generation and recognition of geometrical patters and the influence of possible failures on the power of CA which obviously are of relevance also to applications.
Are mathematical equations the best way to model nature? For many years it had been assumed that they were. But in the early 1980s, Stephen Wolfram made the radical proposal that one should instead build models that are based directly on simple computer programs. Wolfram made a detailed study of a class of such models known as cellular automata, and discovered a remarkable fact: that even when the underlying rules are very simple, the behaviour they produce can be highly complex, and can mimic many features of what we see in nature. And based on this result, Wolfram began a program of research to develop what he called A Science of Complexity."The results of Wolfram's work found many applications, from the so-called Wolfram Classification central to fields such as artificial life, to new ideas about cryptography and fluid dynamics. This book is a collection of Wolfram's original papers on cellular automata and complexity. Some of these papers are widely known in the scientific community others have never been published before. Together, the papers provide a highly readable account of what has become a major new field of science, with important implications for physics, biology, economics, computer science and many other areas.
Cellular automata were introduced in the first half of the last century by John von Neumann who used them as theoretical models for self-reproducing machines. The authors present a self-contained exposition of the theory of cellular automata on groups and explore its deep connections with recent developments in geometric group theory, symbolic dynamics, and other branches of mathematics and theoretical computer science. The topics treated include in particular the Garden of Eden theorem for amenable groups, and the Gromov-Weiss surjunctivity theorem as well as the solution of the Kaplansky conjecture on the stable finiteness of group rings for sofic groups. The volume is entirely self-contained, with 10 appendices and more than 300 exercises, and appeals to a large audience including specialists as well as newcomers in the field. It provides a comprehensive account of recent progress in the theory of cellular automata based on the interplay between amenability, geometric and combinatorial group theory, symbolic dynamics and the algebraic theory of group rings which are treated here for the first time in book form.
This work presents a series of dramatic discoveries never before made public. Starting from a collection of simple computer experiments---illustrated in the book by striking computer graphics---Wolfram shows how their unexpected results force a whole new way of looking at the operation of our universe. Wolfram uses his approach to tackle a remarkable array of fundamental problems in science: from the origin of the Second Law of thermodynamics, to the development of complexity in biology, the computational limitations of mathematics, the possibility of a truly fundamental theory of physics, and the interplay between free will and determinism.
This book highlights both theoretical and applied advances in cellular learning automata (CLA), a type of hybrid computational model that has been successfully employed in various areas to solve complex problems and to model, learn, or simulate complicated patterns of behavior. Owing to CLA’s parallel and learning abilities, it has proven to be quite effective in uncertain, time-varying, decentralized, and distributed environments. The book begins with a brief introduction to various CLA models, before focusing on recently developed CLA variants. In turn, the research areas related to CLA are addressed as bibliometric network analysis perspectives. The next part of the book presents CLA-based solutions to several computer science problems in e.g. static optimization, dynamic optimization, wireless networks, mesh networks, and cloud computing. Given its scope, the book is well suited for all researchers in the fields of artificial intelligence and reinforcement learning.
This fascinating, colourful book offers in-depth insights and first-hand working experiences in the production of art works, using simple computational models with rich morphological behaviour, at the edge of mathematics, computer science, physics and biology. It organically combines ground breaking scientific discoveries in the theory of computation and complex systems with artistic representations of the research results. In this appealing book mathematicians, computer scientists, physicists, and engineers brought together marvelous and esoteric patterns generated by cellular automata, which are arrays of simple machines with complex behavior. Configurations produced by cellular automata uncover mechanics of dynamic patterns formation, their propagation and interaction in natural systems: heart pacemaker, bacterial membrane proteins, chemical rectors, water permeation in soil, compressed gas, cell division, population dynamics, reaction-diffusion media and self-organisation. The book inspires artists to take on cellular automata as a tool of creativity and it persuades scientists to convert their research results into the works of art. The book is lavishly illustrated with visually attractive examples, presented in a lively and easily accessible manner.
