Quantum Game of Life I - Life and Death

By Carlos Pedro Gonçalves

The first version of the Quantum Life model is now published in Netlogo at the website:

http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/models/community/Quantum%20Life%20I


This is a model of a Quantum Game of Life with path-dependent local quantum computation, exemplifying a Quantum Cellular Automaton.


Each patch can be either vacant of life or occupied by a living entity.

At each round of the game, a patch can be actualized into one of the two alternatives: (1) vacant of life or (2) occupied by a living entity, with a certain probability amplitude defined by the local patch quantum (game) state.


There are two alternative rules through which this game is played:

(1) - The clustering rule;

(2) - The spatially and temporally independent rule.

In the first rule, there is the production of a flocking (or herding) phenomenon, that is, the birth of living entities tends to occur through clustering, making emerge, in the quantum game, a quantum gravitic mechanism where the birth and death of living entities tends to lead to clusters of living entities.


In the second rule, the flocking (or herding) phenomenon is absent, the birth and death of living entities occurs with a fixed local probability for each patch, such that there is a fixed local probability for a vacant patch to become occupied by a living entity and a fixed local probability for a living entity, residing in a certain patch, to die.

See also the following video for another version of the model, with a simulation of the clustering rule:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14jdqWEe0wE