On Wolfram Alpha and Cellular Automata

 When most computer users upload a profile image from their desktop to Facebook, they rarely consider the fundamental binary math rules underpinning digital devices. We know that 4 gigabytes of RAM is more memory than 512 megabytes, but we don't visualize the logic chips involved in an XOR $0x100, EAX operation for a 32-bit CISC processor.

Software developers must consider memory management and how a computer's operating system loads their programs into memory. However, they typically don't think about VHDL logic circuit designs, data paths, arithmetic logic units, or the millions of transistors comprising a modern CPU. These low-level details are intentionally abstracted away from the user application developer.

While modern CPUs have evolved dramatically over the past decade, early digital computing relied on simple Boolean operations. These fundamental rules were combined and replicated to load programs into memory and execute them. The principles controlling most digital devices are based on elementary Boolean rules. Cellular automata adopt a similar bottom-up approach, consisting of simple programs (as Stephen Wolfram calls them) that apply to a set of cells on a grid.


https://berlinbrowndev.blogspot.com/2013/02/wolframs-cellular-automata-new-kind-of.html

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

On Unit Testing, Java TDD for developers to write

It has been a while, let's kick off 2017 with a blog entry. I have read and I am reading about four or five posts a day about unit testing. It really has been a long time obsession for me. I have moved past the technical and practical considerations on unit testing frameworks and done with the debates with "should you use Junit or Mockito or Karma?" I am more interested in the psychology of unit testing, who does it, likes it, hates it? It really is one of those easy to learn, hard to master concepts. For example, many many may play chess when they are young and can end up being horribly chess players most of their life, I am part of that majority. Unfortunately, I have never played chess and sat down for hours and tried to master it. I never see the common patterns or have a developed end game. I mostly just play with a knowledge of the basic rules. Following good unit testing practices within your software development shop is a lot like playing chess. It is easy to le...
Read more

Is Java the new COBOL? Yes. What does that mean, exactly? (Part 1)

Image
"If you want to know the past, look at your present. If you want to know the future, look at your present." -- Gautama Buddha Java is the new COBOL, whaaaat?     If you are software developer that mainly writes applications for the web; even if you aren't a Java/J2EE developer, you have probably heard the new meme circulating the web and blogosphere. "Java is the new COBOL" . Most blogs and technical writers regurgitate that statement and follow-up by saying that EJBs suck, and some companies are considering Ruby on Rails. I didn't really think much of these posts. I get the impression that a lot of these "managers" don't write any Java or COBOL code. They are really not highlighting the seriousness of the problem. COBOL development has remained stagnant for decades. Java may see the same problem in the future. The Pentagon/DOD has a trillion dollar COBOL problem because it is so difficult to change their ancient infrastructure. Anyon...
Read more

JVM Notebook: Basic Clojure, Java and JVM Language performance

Image
"Measure, don't guess. The primary goal of all performance tuning exercises should be maximize the end user experience given the resource constraints." [1] "It isn't so much a "farewell to the J" as an expansion of the platform opportunities Java provides. Sun's investment to power ongoing development of JRuby and Jython broadens the range and reach of Java, as a whole." -- Rick Ross Overview and JVM Languages    One of the exciting trends to recently emerge from the Java community is the concept of the JVM language. These technologies are all that you would expect them to be. They are implementations of languages that run on the Java Virtual Machine. Some are newly created and some are based on existing, more mature languages. JRuby, Jython are two JVM languages based on CRuby and CPython. Groovy, Scala, Clojure are three completely new JVM languages that were created to add new language features that weren't supported by the core Ja...
Read more