Computer Components Simulated Using the 'Game of Life' cellular automaton: logic gate AND

Abstract

The whole computer can be simulated using the cellular automaton called the 'Game of the Life' that was designed by John Conway in 1970 using emergent structures of the first order. Presented simulations aim to demonstrate that environments utilizing massive parallel computations (MPC) including living organisms can carry on Turing Machine equivalent computations using elementary, localized computations. In other words, MPCs can evaluate all what is computable.

The design of AND logic gate is demonstrated using the following emergent structures: three glider guns and a stopper. The two most left glider guns represent the logical input equal to the logical one when they are present. Otherwise, when missing, they are equal to the logical zero. The rightmost glider gun serves as the control. Computations are carried out by collisions of gliders generated by the respective glider gun. The output goes to the bottom right direction only and only when the inputs 1 and 1 are present.

Pathologies: An example of incorrectly shifted glider guns that do not lead to the mutual annihilation of colliding gliders. The next level emergent structures are observed appearing from collisions of the first-level emergents called gliders. The emerging structures are called butterflies.

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