Serendip is an independent site partnering with faculty at multiple colleges and universities around the world. Happy exploring!

Reply to comment

EMR's picture

Rule 204

Rule: # 204 (11001100)

Results: Regardless of the setup, cells that are on stay on and others stay off (giving vertical lines of 'on' cells)

World Explanation: At first I thought this was a really boring rule, but then I started thinking about how it gave a pattern that looks like a barcode. By changing the background and foreground colors, I made it look even more like a barcode. I suppose a barcode isn't really something about the world to understand, but it is a way of encoding information about the world. By manipulating the starting condition, this rule could be used to generate any one-dimensional barcode.

Additionally, I suppose you could see this rule as demonstrating Newton's first law of motion: A body at rest stays at rest and a body in motion remains in motion unless acted upon by an unbalanced external force.

Interesting?: I don't know if I would call this rule interesting-it's the kind of straightforward thing that could be demonstrated in much simpler ways, but if you're going to attempt to explain the universe with a finite (and, in fact, quite small) set of rules, you're going to have to make each one count, and each is going to have to explain much more than one thing.

CA Rule 204 'Barcode'

Reply

To prevent automated spam submissions leave this field empty.
1 + 0 =
Solve this simple math problem and enter the result. E.g. for 1+3, enter 4.