Elementary Cellular Automata
Elementary cellular automata are the simplest computers Stephen Wolfram studied: a row of black/white cells where each cell’s next state depends only on itself and its two neighbours. That gives eight input patterns and 2⁸ = 256 possible rules. Enter a rule number 0–255 (or step through with the prev/next buttons), edit the eight-cell birth table visually, choose a single-cell or random starting row, set the width and number of rows, and the tool renders the whole triangle of history as an image you can export as PNG. Presets include the chaotic rule 30, the fractal rule 90 and the Turing-complete rule 110.
Runs 100% in your browser — simulations are computed locally on your device.
Read the full guide to this tool
Notes
- Each rule is an 8-bit number: the bits say what a cell becomes for each of the eight neighbourhoods (left, centre, right).
- Rule 90 draws the Sierpiński triangle, rule 30 produces randomness used in Mathematica’s RNG, and rule 110 is proven capable of universal computation.
- Every row depends only on the row above it, so the whole image is deterministic once the rule and first row are fixed.
- Runs 100% in your browser — simulations are computed locally on your device.
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