Byl's loop
The Byl's loop is an artificial lifeform similar in concept to Langton's loop. It is a two-dimensional, 5-neighbor cellular automaton with 6 states per cell, and was developed in 1989 by John Byl, from the Department of Mathematical Sciences of Trinity Western University.
Details
The Byl's loop was developed just a few years after Langton's simplification of Codd's automaton, which produced a simpler automaton (shown below) that would reproduce itself in 151 time-steps. John Byl simplified Langton's automaton further, with an even smaller automaton that reproduced in just 25 time-steps. Byl's automaton consisted of an array of 12 chips — of which 4 or 5 could be counted as the instruction tape — and 43 transition rules, while Langton's device consisted of some 10x15 chips, including an instruction tape of 33 chips, plus some 190 transition rules.
Essentially, the simplification consisted in using less cellular states (6 as compared with Langton's 8) and a smaller replicating loop (12 cells as compared with Langton's 86).
In 1989, John Byl devised a self-reproducing automata so small, twelve cells in six states with fifty-seven transition rules, that it undermines "von Neumann's 'complexity threshold' separating trivial from non-trivial self-replication" (Sigmund 1993:24[1]). - ScienceTimeLine.net (1961-2003)
See also
References
- ^ Karl Sigmund (1995). Games of Life: Explorations in Ecology, Evolution and Behaviour. Penguin. p. 24. ISBN 0140242090.
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Further reading
- John Byl (1989), "Self-Reproduction in Small Cellular Automata", Physica D, 34: 295–299
- John Byl (1989), "On Cellular Automata and the Origin of Life", Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, 41 (1), American Scientific Affiliation: 26–29
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External links
- visual representation of the Byl's loop in Java
- Robert C. Newman. "Artificial Life and Cellular Automata".
- See Cellular Automata FAQ - Applications (section "What are Byl's rules for a self reproducing CA?") for the full rule set of Byl's loop
- Gianluca Tempesti (1998), "Chapter 3: Self-Replication", A Self-Repairing Multiplexer-Based FPGA Inspired by Biological Processes