A Unique Educational & Career Opportunity with Stephen Wolfram

A unique opportunity to do original research at the frontiers of science, the Wolfram Science Summer School helps about 40 students from a diverse range of scientific backgrounds learn about Stephen Wolfram's A New Kind of Science (NKS) and apply it to their fields of interest. Most of these students are advanced undergraduates and early graduate students, but those in different circumstances are considered. We are looking for students who want to move their careers in the NKS direction. Read more »

Class of 2011

Maurício Verardo da Costa

Bio [2011]

Maurício Verardo da Costa is currently a student of computer science at Mackenzie Presbyterian University (Brazil). After taking classes with Pedro Paulo Balbi de Oliveira, he got interested in the world of formal languages and automata, and learned about NKS and cellular automata.

Project Title

Creating Metrics to Predict Behavior Using Block Frequencies

Project

The project consists of trying to find metrics that measure the complexity of ECAs by checking the occurrence of specific cell blocks during the evolution.

The metrics are meant to answer these kinds of questions:

  • Given a CA rule, how much is the frequency of certain blocks dependent on the initial condition?
  • What is the probability of a certain block appearing during the evolution of a cellular automaton rule?

By using that kind of metric, it may be possible to predict if a cellular automaton will probably converge to a particullar state or not.

Favorite Four-Color Totalistic Cellular Automaton

Rule 399881