Cellular Automata: A Discrete View of the World
From MathsDept
by Joel L. Schiff
Schiff, Joel L. 2008,Wiley Interscience, 30 November 2007, 272 pages., Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-0470168790, ISBN-10: 047016879X
About the book (from amazon.com)
As the applicability of cellular automata broadens and technology advances, there is a need for a concise but thorough resource that lays the foundation of key cellular automata rules and applications. In recent years, Stephen Wolfram's, A New Kind of Science, has brought to the attention of the scientific world the modeling power inherent in the medium of cellular automata. Now, Cellular Automata: A Discrete View of the World presents the thrust of the classic Wolfram text in a straightforward, introductory manner. Utilizing at times, novel material, this book provides an introduction to cellular automata as a constructive method for modeling the behavior of a wide range of complex systems (from bacteria to perhaps the universe itself), where patterns of self-organization arising from simple rules are revealed. Some of the material is presented for the first time in book form.
The highly visual nature of the subject is accented with over 200 illustrations (8 pages of which are in color), that provide vivid representations of the cellular automata under discussion. Readers can create their own cellular automata using Java(tm) applets and simple computer code, which are available via the book's FTP site. This book serves as a valuable resource for undergraduate and graduate students and would be of interest to any reader with a scientific background.
