From Newton to Cellular Automata

Abstract

I outline a possible logical path from the formulation of physics of classical mechanics to "abstract" systems like cellular automata. The goal of this article is that of illustrating why physicists often study extremely simplified models, instead of just numerically integrating the fundamental equations of physics. This exposition is obviously only partial and based on my expertise and my interests.

A similar version of this text appeared under the title "Interaction Based Computing in Physics" in the "Encyclopedia of Complexity and System Science", Springer, New York 2009 p. 4902

References in corpus (2)

• Power laws, Pareto distributions and Zipf's law
• Synchronization universality classes and stability of smooth, coupled map lattices

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Emergence from Symmetry: A New Type of Cellular Automata