The Cook Book
Recipe for the week of August 14 - 20
A 3D Reversible Cellular Automaton
- Norm Margolus, the creator of CAM8, was in town last week helping us
tame the beast. This week's soup is one of his recent favorites, a three-
dimensional version of the reversible Fredkin rule that we a featured June
19 - 25. The array size of 256 by 256 by 256 indicates the power of CAM8 to
carry out simulations beyond the scope of conventional hardware.
- We started the 3D four-color revor rule from a 17 by 17 by 17
central block of one of the colors. Our graphic depicts two slices at an early
time on top, and two corresponding slices much later in the evolution on the
bottom. In each case, one frame depicts a slice at the top of the array,
while the other is through the middle; shading with respect to an external light
source has been added to enhance visualization. Alternatively, one can employ
stereoscopic effects, 3D glasses and the like to begin to get a feeling for
the largely uncharted realm of spatial cellular automata.
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