Cellular Automata

What have I been doing tonight? Let me show you the video I’ve made:

(Note: Video contains flashing images. It’s at 4Hz though, so it shouldn’t be a problem for most people sensitive to this kind of thing.)

“What is this strange and bewitching thing?!” you ask. It’s the 256 simplest possible cellular automata. Every one of these is generated using a very simple rule for each line. In fact the rules themselves are generated from the numbers 0 to 255. It’s one of the best examples of chaos and complexity emerging from astoundingly simple premises.

And if you don’t care for the maths, they do make for some pretty patterns.