Wireworld [SEP] time of discovery
Wireworld
Wireworld is a cellular automaton first proposed by Brian Silverman in 1987, as part of his program Phantom Fish Tank. It subsequently became more widely known as a result of an article in the "Computer Recreations" column of "Scientific American". Wireworld is particularly suited to simulating electronic logic elements, or "gates", and Wireworld is Turing-complete.
Rules.
A Wireworld cell can be in one of four different states, usually numbered 0–3 in software, modeled by colors in the examples here
value of one) in any direction, both orthogonal and diagonal.
These simple rules can be used to construct logic gates (see below).
Applications.
Entities built within Wireworld universes include Langton's Ant (allowing any Langton's Ant pattern to be built within Wireworld) and the Wireworld computer, a Turing-complete computer implemented as a cellular automaton.
See also.
- von Neumann's cellular automaton
External links.
- Wireworld on Rosetta Code
- The Wireworld computer in Java