Cellular Automata: Part 1
Here are two very simple cellular automata built in Macromedia Flash. Both use an array of 25 cells with eight possible content/values for each cell. The half-sized cell at the right of the array is a selector. Click it to dial up a particular content assignment, then click on one of the cells to place that content in the cell.
Every two seconds each cell in the array re-evaluates its state by reading the states of the cells that lie above, below, left, and right (except for cells at the corners, which check a smaller list of neighbors). Values of the neighboring cells are averaged and rounded down to the nearest whole number, which becomes the current cell value.
In the first example cells are only changed by user intervention (clicking on the assignment button and transferring its value to a cell). In the second example, a scrambler operates every five seconds, choosing a random cell and assigning it a random value. Users can intervene on top of this process.
Click on one of the thumbnail graphics to run the example (assuming you have the Flash 5 plugin).
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| Example 1: Without Randomization |
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| Example 2: With Randomization |
