Computation and Turing Completeness — A Grid That Computes Anything
Here is cellular automata's most mind-bending result: some of them are universal computers. The Game of Life and Rule 110 — systems of a few trivial rules — can compute anything any computer can compute. A grid of cells flipping on and off by a simple neighbor rule is, in principle, as powerful as any computer ever built. This post is about how simple cellular automata achieve universal computation, and why that is one of the most profound facts in computer science.
Some cellular automata are universal computers — the Game of Life and Rule 110 can compute anything computable, from a few trivial rules. How a CA computes using emergent structures as components (gliders as signals, collisions as logic gates, stable patterns as memory), and why universal computation needing so little is one of the field's deepest facts.