Show HN: An interactive playground for cellular automata patterns

4 points by iimaginary a year ago · 1 comment · 1 min read

Last month, I stumbled upon an article about 1D reversible automata.

https://richiejp.com/1d-reversible-automata

I was struck by how simple mathematical rules could create patterns that look remarkably like microscope images of living cells. I had to explore this further, so I built Automata - an interactive visualiser where you can play with these patterns yourself.

(Tip: Start with Rule 75 in reversible mode - you'll see what I mean about cell-like patterns)

Excited to hear what you discover.

Thanks to @richiejp whose article sparked this project. I see he's built a very good explorer since I read the article but mine has a couple of different features so I think it's still worth sharing.