Now, that it is not certain if THE REVOLUTION is going to take on
USA
we check the grounds all around.

These are some strivings than. They, of course, are structural only.

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Title: Complexity by way of simplicity. By: Weiss, Peter, Science
News, 00368423, 3/20/2004, Vol. 165, Issue 12
Database: Science Reference CenterHTML Full TextComplexity by way of
simplicity
Section: OF NOTE
PHYSICS


In his controversial 2002 book A New Kind of Science (Wolfram Media),
theoretical physicist Stephen Wolfram proposed that traditional
science is incapable of fathoming many important phenomena in nature.
The complexity of how galaxies formed or what the weather will be
tomorrow is too much for mathematical formulas, he asserts (SN:
8/16/03, p.106).


Now, a team of physicists has unveiled a new way to process pattern-
generating algorithms called cellular automata, which Wolfram argues
are a superior way to model complex phenomena. The new study suggests
that some cellular automata can be simplified substantially yet
retain
the essential outlines of their patterns, says Navot Israeli of the
Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel. He and Nigel D.
Goldenfeld of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign describe
their technique in the Feb. 20 Physical Review Letters.


A cellular automaton is a computational procedure for generating
patterns on the basis of the relationships between like and unlike
squares, or cells, of a grid. In the new work, Goldenfeld says, he
and
Israeli have done with automata what scientists have previously done
when grappling with large groups of atoms or other particles. For
example, by considering gases as ensembles of molecules instead of
many individual molecules, scientists have been able to write
formulas
for phenomena such as temperature and pressure.


Israeli and Goldenfeld treat the cells of automata in a similar way.
Starting with standard cellular-automata patterns, the researchers
bunched sets of existing cells into "supercells" and then treated
those supercells according to new rules. The resulting patterns
tended
to be fuzzier than the originals but had more predictable features,
the researchers say.


This "nice, incremental improvement" offers a new method for
simplifying cellular automata patterns, Wolfram comments. However,
approximations of complex systems may discard important information,
he cautions.


~~~~~~~~


By Peter Weiss


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