Definition
A cellular automaton (pl. cellular automata, abbrev. CA) is a discrete model studied in computability theory, mathematics, physics, complexity science (Complexity), theoretical biology, and microstructure modeling. They are used to build parallel computing (Parallel Computing, Data Parallelism) architectures as well as to model and simulate physical systems. Moreover they can be used to investigate and reproduce the emergence of patterns (Spatiotemporal Pattern Formation), self-replication and self-similarity properties in natural systems.
Characteristics
History
CA were first developed in the 1940s by Stanislaw Ulam, who was investigating the growth of crystals, using a simple lattice network as his model, and by John Von Neumann, who was working on the problem of self-replicating systems (Von Neumann 1966).
In 1946, Norbert Wiener and...
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Cosentino, C., Vescio, B., Amato, F. (2013). Cellular Automata. In: Dubitzky, W., Wolkenhauer, O., Cho, KH., Yokota, H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Systems Biology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9863-7_989
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9863-7_989
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