|
Self-replication On a Chessboard
|
The following page is an online supplement to the article:
Machines that Replicate,
Moshe Sipper
and
James A. Reggia,
Scientific American, vol. 285, no. 2, pp. 26-35, August 2001.
This project, carried out by Veronique Quiby and Sebastien Baehni (under the
supervision of
Moshe Sipper), allows you to visualize the simple example given in
Box XX of the article: Self-replication on a chessboard.
The following options are available:
- Clear the board.
- Place the initial configuration of the Replicated
Loop on the board.
- Reduced Rule Set brings about one cycle of
replication (up to iteration 9) on a board of size 8x8. The
cellular-automata rules are those given in the article.
- Full Rule Set brings about several cycles of
replication with boards of size 8x8, 16x16, and 32x32. The additional
rules necessary to handle loop collisions are fully delineated in:
Reggia, Armentrout, Chou, and Peng, ``Simple systems that exhibit
self-directed replication,'' Science, vol. 259, pages
1282-1287, February 1993.
- Start replication process.
- Step through replication process iteration by
iteration.
- Stop simulation.
- Chessboard Size can be set to 8x8, 16x16, or 32x32.
- Border Conditions can be either fixed
(border cells have fictitious neighbors set to state zero) or
toroidal (board is folded upon itself like a doughnut).
Note: You can pick and drag pieces from the left menu and place them
anywhere on the board, as well as remove existing pieces by picking
and dragging them outside the board confines.
|
|