Reading Group Theme: A New Kind of Science

 

·        Everyone welcome

·        See also the Matlab workshop on Monday (1/7/2) which includes cellular automata http://www.itee.uq.edu.au/~cogsci/MatlabWorkshop/

·        Festival of Doubt homepage http://www.festivalofdoubt.uq.edu.au/

 

1^st session (5/7/2).  Theme for this session: The basic science of cellular automata

 

Theme for the pub after work: What’s so interesting about cellular automata that 1200 pages was required?

 

·        Friday 5^th July 2002

·        12 noon-1pm (and possibly longer…)

·        Room 420 GP-South

·        A photocopy of the suggested readings is available from GP-South level 3 in the filing cabinet to the left of the lift (draw 3) for people to borrow and make copies for themselves.

 

Readings:

 

Suggested reading for this session: pages 23-41, 51-60, 223-230, 250-254

Reader’s digest version: the description of the cellular automata on page 24, full range of behaviours pages 55-56, and information transmission page 250

 

Breakdown of the readings by content: 

NB. These readings were chosen to cover the basics of cellular automata. They start with a pictorial introduction to cellular automata and the idea that there are four classes of behaviour produced by simple rule systems: simple, nested, random and “complex”. Then the range of behaviours is considered (different random initial conditions and small modifications in initial conditions).

 

·        The basic definitions of the 1-dimensional cellular automata and the four classes of behaviour they produce

o       pages 23-41 (from chapter 2)

·        The full range of behaviours for all 256 simple cellular automata

o       pages 51-60 (from  chapter 3)

·        Sensitivity of cellular automata to initial conditions

o       pages 223-230 (from chapter 5)

·        How information is transmitted through the different classes of cellular automata

o       250-254 (from chapter 5)