Byl's Loop
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The Byl's loop is an
artificial life Artificial life (ALife or A-Life) is a field of study wherein researchers examine systems related to natural life, its processes, and its evolution, through the use of simulations with computer models, robotics, and biochemistry. The discipline ...
form similar in concept to Langton's loop. It is a two-dimensional, 5-neighbor
cellular automaton A cellular automaton (pl. cellular automata, abbrev. CA) is a discrete model of computation studied in automata theory. Cellular automata are also called cellular spaces, tessellation automata, homogeneous structures, cellular structures, tessel ...
with 7 states per cell, and was developed in 1989 by John Byl, from the Department of Mathematical Sciences of
Trinity Western University Trinity Western University (TWU) is a Private university, private Christian liberal arts university with campuses in both Langley, British Columbia (district municipality), Langley and Richmond, British Columbia, Richmond, British Columbia. The ...
.


Details

The Byl's loop was developed just a few years after Langton's simplification of Codd's automaton, which produced a simpler automaton that would reproduce itself in 151 time-steps. John Byl simplified Langton's automaton further, with an even smaller automaton that reproduced in just 25 time-steps. Byl's automaton consisted of an array of 12 chips — of which 4 or 5 could be counted as the instruction tape — and 43 transition rules, while Langton's device consisted of some 10×15 chips, including an instruction tape of 33 chips, plus some 190 transition rules. Essentially, the simplification consisted in using fewer cellular states (7 as compared with Langton's 8) and a smaller replicating loop (12 cells as compared with Langton's 86).


See also

*
Langton's loops Langton's loops are a particular "species" of artificial life in a cellular automaton created in 1984 by Christopher Langton. They consist of a loop of cells containing genetic information, which flows continuously around the loop and out alon ...
* Chou-Reggia loop


References


Further reading

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External links


visual representation
of the Byl's loop in a
Java applet Java applets were applet, small applications written in the Java (programming language), Java programming language, or another programming language that Compiled language, compiles to Java bytecode, and delivered to users in the form of Ja ...

Cellular Automata FAQ - Applications
(section "What are Byl's rules for a self reproducing CA?") for the full rule set of Byl's loop * {{citation , url = http://lslwww.epfl.ch/pages/embryonics/thesis/Chapter3.html , chapter = Chapter 3: Self-Replication , author = Gianluca Tempesti , title = A Self-Repairing Multiplexer-Based FPGA Inspired by Biological Processes , year=1998 Artificial life Cellular automaton rules