Collision Based Computing

Collision-Based Computing presents a unique overview of computation with mobile self-localized patterns in non-linear media, including computation in optical media, mathematical models of massively parallel computers, and molecular systems. It covers such diverse subjects as conservative computation in billiard ball models and its cellular-automaton analogues, implementation of computing devices in lattice gases, Conway's Game of Life and discrete excitable media, theory of particle machines, computation with solitons, logic of ballistic computing, phenomenology of computation, and self-replicating universal computers. Collision-Based Computing will be of interest to researchers working on relevant topics in Computing Science, Mathematical Physics and Engineering. It will also be useful background reading for postgraduate courses such as Optical Computing, Nature-Inspired Computing, Artificial Intelligence, Smart Engineering Systems, Complex and Adaptive Systems, Parallel Computation, Applied Mathematics and Computational Physics.

Reaction-diffusion and excitable media are amongst most intriguing substrates. Despite apparent simplicity of the physical processes involved the media exhibit a wide range of amazing patterns: from target and spiral waves to travelling localisations and stationary breathing patterns. These media are at the heart of most natural processes, including morphogenesis of living beings, geological formations, nervous and muscular activity, and socio-economic developments. This book explores a minimalist paradigm of studying reaction-diffusion and excitable media using locally-connected networks of finite-state machines: cellular automata and automata on proximity graphs. Cellular automata are marvellous objects per se because they show us how to generate and manage complexity using very simple rules of dynamical transitions. When combined with the reaction-diffusion paradigm the cellular automata become an essential user-friendly tool for modelling natural systems and designing future and emergent computing architectures. The book brings together hot topics of non-linear sciences, complexity, and future and emergent computing. It shows how to discover propagating localisation and perform computation with them in very simple two-dimensional automaton models. Paradigms, models and implementations presented in the book strengthen the theoretical foundations in the area for future and emergent computing and lay key stones towards physical embodied information processing systems.

The unconventional computing is a niche for interdisciplinary science, cross-bred of computer science, physics, mathematics, chemistry, electronic engineering, biology, material science and nanotechnology. The aims of this book are to uncover and exploit principles and mechanisms of information processing in and functional properties of physical, chemical and living systems to develop efficient algorithms, design optimal architectures and manufacture working prototypes of future and emergent computing devices. This second volume presents experimental laboratory prototypes and applied computing implementations. Emergent molecular computing is presented by enzymatic logical gates and circuits, and DNA nano-devices. Reaction-diffusion chemical computing is exemplified by logical circuits in Belousov-Zhabotinsky medium and geometrical computation in precipitating chemical reactions. Logical circuits realised with solitons and impulses in polymer chains show advances in collision-based computing. Photo-chemical and memristive devices give us a glimpse on hot topics of a novel hardware. Practical computing is represented by algorithms of collective and immune-computing and nature-inspired optimisation. Living computing devices are implemented in real and simulated cells, regenerating organisms, plant roots and slime mould. The book is the encyclopedia, the first ever complete authoritative account, of the theoretical and experimental findings in the unconventional computing written by the world leaders in the field. All chapters are self-contains, no specialist background is required to appreciate ideas, findings, constructs and designs presented. This treatise in unconventional computing appeals to readers from all walks of life, from high-school pupils to university professors, from mathematicians, computers scientists and engineers to chemists and biologists.

Computing in Nonlinear Media and Automata Collectives presents an account of new ways to design massively parallel computing devices in advanced mathematical models, such as cellular automata and lattice swarms, from unconventional materials, including chemical solutions, bio-polymers, and excitable media.

Modern computing relies on future and emergent technologies which have been conceived via interaction between computer science, engineering, chemistry, physics and biology. This highly interdisciplinary book presents advances in the fields of parallel, distributed and emergent information processing and computation. The book represents major breakthroughs in parallel quantum protocols, elastic cloud servers, structural properties of interconnection networks, internet of things, morphogenetic collective systems, swarm intelligence and cellular automata, unconventionality in parallel computation, algorithmic information dynamics, localized DNA computation, graph-based cryptography, slime mold inspired nano-electronics and cytoskeleton computers. Features Truly interdisciplinary, spanning computer science, electronics, mathematics and biology Covers widely popular topics of future and emergent computing technologies, cloud computing, parallel computing, DNA computation, security and network analysis, cryptography, and theoretical computer science Provides unique chapters written by top experts in theoretical and applied computer science, information processing and engineering From Parallel to Emergent Computing provides a visionary statement on how computing will advance in the next 25 years and what new fields of science will be involved in computing engineering. This book is a valuable resource for computer scientists working today, and in years to come.

This volume constitutes the refereed post-conference proceedings of the 26th IFIP WG 1.5 International Workshop on Cellular Automata and Discrete Complex Systems, AUTOMATA 2020, held in Stockholm, Sweden, in August 2020. The workshop was held virtually. The 11 full papers presented in this book were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 21 submissions. The topics of the conference include dynamical, topological, ergodic and algebraic aspects of CA and DCS, algorithmic and complexity issues, emergent properties, formal languages, symbolic dynamics, tilings, models of parallelism and distributed systems, timing schemes, synchronous versus asynchronous models, phenomenological descriptions, scientific modeling, and practical applications.

Did you know that computation can be implemented with cytoskeleton networks, chemical reactions, liquid marbles, plants, polymers and dozens of other living and inanimate substrates? Do you know what is reversible computing or a DNA microscopy? Are you aware that randomness aids computation? Would you like to make logical circuits from enzymatic reactions? Have you ever tried to implement digital logic with Minecraft? Do you know that eroding sandstones can compute too?This volume reviews most of the key attempts in coming up with an alternative way of computation. In doing so, the authors show that we do not need computers to compute and we do not need computation to infer. It invites readers to rethink the computer and computing, and appeals to computer scientists, mathematicians, physicists and philosophers. The topics are presented in a lively and easily accessible manner and make for ideal supplementary reading across a broad range of subjects.

Few books comprehensively cover the software and programming aspects of reversible computing. Filling this gap, Introduction to Reversible Computing offers an expanded view of the field that includes the traditional energy-motivated hardware viewpoint as well as the emerging application-motivated software approach. Collecting scattered knowledge in