This chapter explains how a particular automaton theoretical model for cellular interactions in development, the one originally proposed by LINDENMAYER, can be used to answer a particular problem in biology. The problem to be concerned with is whether polarity of individual cells is a necessary condition for the regulatory polar development of organisms. Polarity is simply the specific
... [Show full abstract] orientation of activity in space. It refers to the fact that a given biological event, such as the transfer of material through an organ or the plane in which a cell divides, is not a random process but tends to be oriented in a given direction. If this were not so, an organism would grow into a spherical mass of cells, like tissue in a shaken culture. The kind of global behavior observed in the experiments can be achieved with individual cells which are apolar.
