Cellular automata

Cellular automata are a class of systems where rows of cells are continuously updated according to some rule. These sequences of rows can then produce spectacular fractals, or unpredictable chaos.

Rule family

Rule

Each pair is a neighbourhood and what it turns into. Click the lower cell of any pair to flip it and you have a different rule — all 256 of them are two or three clicks apart. The bottom row read left to right is the number in binary: 01011010 is 90.

Rule number(0–255)

Presets

Start from

Rows per second20

Rule 90 · generation 0 · line 0 cells, 0% alive, widening as the pattern spreads · 3.00 px per cell. Drag the diagram to pan around it; hold ⌘ or Ctrl and scroll — or pinch a trackpad — to zoom about the pointer.