Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Deus Ex Automatis: Part II
The history of cellular automata is intertwined with the history of computers itself.
It was easy to imagine cool things to do with computers. The emerging technology conference- a talk by Microsoft Labs next-door, another talk by Amazon Web Services out in the courtyard, and only the cool kids here. That's you all- the cook kids.
With a few notable exceptions, everyone decided to ignore cellular automata. Which is why he's often pictured with a computer (notably, the EDVAC), instead of a self-reproducing automaton.
Very few.
Ten or so years after von Neumann's untimely death, his friend Arthur W. Burks published his papers on automata theory. I read the originals. Genius, but clearly unfinished. He was a busy guy. You know, inventing computers and the atomic bomb and game theory.
E.F. Codd- yes, the same E.F. Codd who gave us relational databases- had a brief romance with cellular automata with a simplification of JVN's self-reproducing machine.
And from there, the field exploded, experiencing slow linear growth for another forty years.
John Conway's Game of Life is a cellular automaton that mimics a biological ecology.
Rudy Rucker uses a particularly gnarly class of automata to describe Jellyfish.
Chris Langton made a famous one to describe the way an ant walks, but seems to focus on swarms now.
Thomas Schelling's segregation model was a cellular automaton in all but name.
As was most of Donald Greenspan's 1973 book Discrete Models, featuring a rant about how infinity is un-mathematical.
And we can't forget the preeeeeeetty seeeashells courtesy of Stephen Wolfram.
And all that only took another forty years.
Now that I've given you the history lesson, you all know why I became a computer programmer instead of a historian.
Before closing I should note, in passing, that there have been a steady stream of philosopher-hackers over those forty years, starting with Konrad Zuse's Rechender Raum (translated into English as Calculating Space), who insist that the universe itself is a calculation.
There will be time enough for that later, though.
It was easy to imagine cool things to do with computers. The emerging technology conference- a talk by Microsoft Labs next-door, another talk by Amazon Web Services out in the courtyard, and only the cool kids here. That's you all- the cook kids.
With a few notable exceptions, everyone decided to ignore cellular automata. Which is why he's often pictured with a computer (notably, the EDVAC), instead of a self-reproducing automaton.
Very few.
Ten or so years after von Neumann's untimely death, his friend Arthur W. Burks published his papers on automata theory. I read the originals. Genius, but clearly unfinished. He was a busy guy. You know, inventing computers and the atomic bomb and game theory.
E.F. Codd- yes, the same E.F. Codd who gave us relational databases- had a brief romance with cellular automata with a simplification of JVN's self-reproducing machine.
And from there, the field exploded, experiencing slow linear growth for another forty years.
John Conway's Game of Life is a cellular automaton that mimics a biological ecology.
Rudy Rucker uses a particularly gnarly class of automata to describe Jellyfish.
Chris Langton made a famous one to describe the way an ant walks, but seems to focus on swarms now.
Thomas Schelling's segregation model was a cellular automaton in all but name.
As was most of Donald Greenspan's 1973 book Discrete Models, featuring a rant about how infinity is un-mathematical.
And we can't forget the preeeeeeetty seeeashells courtesy of Stephen Wolfram.
And all that only took another forty years.
Now that I've given you the history lesson, you all know why I became a computer programmer instead of a historian.
Before closing I should note, in passing, that there have been a steady stream of philosopher-hackers over those forty years, starting with Konrad Zuse's Rechender Raum (translated into English as Calculating Space), who insist that the universe itself is a calculation.
There will be time enough for that later, though.
Labels: cellular automata, deusexautomatis, etech
// posted by David @ 8:26 PM 
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