Ask HN: Looking for a Book on Cellular Automata • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Looking for a Book on Cellular Automata

#31

Post by ehudla » Mon, Jun 27, 2016, 5:59 AM UTC

ehudla wrote: post #30

A basic introduction, as well as suggested readings, can be found in the book Biological Computation, which I co-authored http://t.co/JzWrcnSzB3 I am especially fond/proud of the detailed explanations of the proofs of computational universality of CA.

Here's what we had to say about books mentioned in this thread:

Schiff, J.L. 2008. Cellular Automata: A Discrete View of the World.John Wiley & Sons. A readable introduction to cellular automata and their applications.

Wolfram, S. 2002. A New Kind of Science. Wolfram Media. A very ambitious book trying to demonstrate in detail (the book contains 1,197 pages) that the entire universe around us (e.g., biological, physical, and computational phenomena) could be and should be considered as cellular automata. While the approach of the author is a matter of heated discussion, the book is thoughtprovoking and contains many interesting examples.

Ilachinski, A. 2001. Cellular Automata: A Discrete Universe. World Scientific Publishing. A detailed (approximately 800-page) and technical exposition of cellular automata. Includes detailed discussions of various theoretical techniques for studying cellular automata behavior. The proof of the universality of Life is presented in detail. Among the topics covered are probabilistic CA, the relationship between CA and physics models, and a comparison between CA and neural networks.

Re: Ask HN: Looking for a Book on Cellular Automata

#32

Post by designtofly » Mon, Jun 27, 2016, 4:22 PM UTC

mjfl wrote: post #11

Surprised no one has said "A New Kind of Science" by Stephen Wolfram. While not quite a new kind of science, it is all about cellular automata. http://www.wolframscience.com/nksonline/toc.html

Although Shalizi has his own biases and is pretty opinionated, his review of "A New Kind of Science" is quite interesting and is worth considering: http://bactra.org/reviews/wolfram/

Re: Ask HN: Looking for a Book on Cellular Automata

#33

Post by uuuuuu » Mon, Jun 27, 2016, 10:49 PM UTC

teraflop wrote: post #12

I believe it's out of print now, but if you can find it, check out "The Recursive Universe" by William Poundstone. It centers around Conway's Game of Life, but every other chapter branches out to draw connections with other topics, like biology, information theory, and thermodynamics.

This book made a deep impact on my worldview.

Re: Ask HN: Looking for a Book on Cellular Automata

#34

Post by qubex » Wed, Jun 29, 2016, 3:17 PM UTC

pacaro wrote: post #9

While not just about this, The Computational Beauty of Nature [1] is worth checking out. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Computational-Beauty-Nature-Explorati...

This is my all-time favourite book! Reading it way back in the day is what convinced me that studying Applied Mathematics & Computer Science was my path in life. Absolutely incomparable, I loved it mainly because it's a grand tour of everything that is amazing and the author doesn't shy away from code, formulae, and background (OGY Control, eigenvalues & eigenvectors!) necessary to really grasp the concepts and implement them.

Re: Ask HN: Looking for a Book on Cellular Automata

#35

Post by syngrog66 » Thu, Jul 07, 2016, 6:55 AM UTC

syngrog66 wrote: post #10

have you tried googling for "books on cellular automata"? also consulting Wikipedia, Amazon, YouTube, etc, more directly?

I am amused that this very reasonable and constructive, and "teach a man to fish" kind of comment of mine has been downvoted to -1.

HN ownership/mods: please remove the ability to Downvote. it's clearly being abused. do you want to have a community of smart, helpful people with free discussion, with the goal of mutual improvement? or do you want a community of assholes and heavy HiveMind/ThoughtPolice effect?

a follow-up related challenge is do you want HN to become the sort of website where anyone can ask, for example, "what is foo?" despite being a thing that that very same someone could have gotten reasonable answers/education about by just googling about? What is sex? What is algebra? How do I learn about computers? What is a website? What is a web browser? What is HN? Who is PG? What is the English language?

Are these acceptable questions for the caliber of people you'd like to attract and retain here on HN? Do you realize that some people are just gaming your system? Do you realize that some are carrying out stealth self-promotion, while playing innocent? Where do babies come from? Which key do I press to submit this comment? How do I use the Chrome browser? Are these all acceptable post topics and comments here on HN as well? (This should be a fair question given the recent mod and community track record to date.) What is "Star Wars"? Who made "Linux"? What is a "pineapple"?