Hello everyone. In this unit we'll explore cellular automata, which are idealized models of
complex systems. You'll find that this unit will bring together many of the ideas
that we've encountered in previous units on dynamics, information and evolution.
We'll start by looking at the game of Life, in which very simple rules can give rise to highly complex
and organized behavior. We'll survey a bit of the history of cellular automata, and how they fit
into the field of complex systems. We'll then look at cellular automata as dynamical systems, as
information processing systems and as systems that can be evolved via genetic algorithms.