TOPICS
Search

Outer-Totalistic Cellular Automaton


An outer-totalistic cellular automaton is a generalization of the totalistic cellular automaton. Totalistic rules are a proper superset of outer-totalistic rules. In particular, consider the cellular automaton rule

 a   b   c 
      d

so that the center cell with value b changes to value d when bordered by cells with values a and c. The cells with values a and c are called the outer cells.

In a totalistic cellular automatic, the total value of the cells a+b+c (0<=a+b+c<=3(k-1)) is considered, and for each possible value of that total, the rule output is given. So a list of 3(k-1)+1 entries, each from 0 to k-1 are needed.

In an outer-totalistic cellular automaton, both the center cell value b (0<=b<k) and the outer total a+c (0<=a+c<=2(k-1)) are considered. Note these are trivially independent quantities. For each combination of the center value b and outer-total a+c, the rule output is given. So a matrix with 2(k-1)+1 rows and k columns is needed with entries each 0 to k-1.

This can be generalized to more outer cells (e.g., two on each side), to two dimensions, and so on.

A k-color outer-totalistic cellular automaton can be generated in the Wolfram Language using

  CellularAutomaton[{n, {k, {k, 1, k}}, 1},
    init, steps, {All, All}]

Similarly, 9-cell two-dimensional outer totalistic rules can be given for a single row through time and the last step, respectively, by

  First /@ CellularAutomaton[{n,
      {k, {{k, k, k}, {k, 1, k}, {k, k, k}}}, {1, 1}
    },
    init, steps, {All, {0}, All}]
  First[CellularAutomaton[{n,
      {k, {{k, k, k}, {k, 1, k}, {k, k, k}}}, {1, 1}
    },
    init, steps, {-1, All, All}]]

See also

Cellular Automaton, Totalistic Cellular Automaton

Portions of this entry contributed by Richard Phillips

Explore with Wolfram|Alpha

References

Wolfram, S. A New Kind of Science. Champaign, IL: Wolfram Media, pp. 927-928, 2002.

Referenced on Wolfram|Alpha

Outer-Totalistic Cellular Automaton

Cite this as:

Phillips, Richard and Weisstein, Eric W. "Outer-Totalistic Cellular Automaton." From MathWorld--A Wolfram Web Resource. https://mathworld.wolfram.com/Outer-TotalisticCellularAutomaton.html

Subject classifications