Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
FIGURe 3.2
stephen Wolfram's
cellular automaton
Wolfram described his work in detail in his book
A New Kind of Science
(2002).
His extensive study has revealed three critical qualities of systems that exhibit
dynamic behavior:
n
They must consist of simple cells whose rules are defined locally. This means
the system must consist of parts that can be describe relatively easily in isolation.
In Wolfram's cellular automaton example, eight simple rules determine the behavior
of each individual cell.
n
The system must allow for long-range communication. Changes in the state of
a single part of the complex system must be able to cause changes in parts distant
in space or time. Long-range communication is what makes the butterfly effect
possible. In Wolfram's cellular automaton, communication between parts takes
place because each cell directly influences its immediate neighbors. Because those
neighbors also have neighbors, each cell is indirectly connected to every other cell
in the system.
