ancestors (6)

From: McIntosh Harold V.-UAP (mcintosh@redvax1.dgsca.unam.mx)
Date: Fri Jul 02 1993 - 02:17:49 UTC


Commentary on Andrew Wuensche and Mike Lesser's new book, 'The Global Dynamics 
of Cellular Automata.' Addison-Wesley, 1992 (ISBN 0-201-55740-1) continues. We 
have digressed into some issues of matrix theory and graph theory in the 
expectation that a better understanding of the foundations of cellular 
automaton theory will help with understanding some of the topics of the book, 
such as Langton's parameter, Z, and perturbations (mutations). 

To maintain a connection with the book, consider again the A and B matrices 
for Wolfram's (2,1) Rule 22:

               1 0 0 0        0 1 0 0
          A =  0 0 0 1   B =  0 0 1 0
               0 1 0 0        1 0 0 0
               0 0 1 1        0 0 0 0

For a chain of three cells, we have eight products of these three matrices, 
corresponding to the ancestors of 000, 001, 010, and so on:

        1 0 0 0         0 1 0 0         0 1 0 0         0 1 0 0
  AAA = 0 1 1 1   AAB = 1 0 0 0   ABA = 0 0 0 0   ABB = 0 0 1 0 
        0 0 1 1         0 0 0 0         0 1 0 0         0 0 0 0
        0 1 1 2         1 0 1 0         1 0 0 0         0 1 0 0

        0 0 1 1         0 0 0 0         0 1 0 0         1 0 0 0
  BAA = 0 0 0 1   BAB = 0 0 1 0   BBA = 1 0 0 0   BBB = 0 1 0 0 
        1 0 0 0         0 1 0 0         0 0 0 1         0 0 1 0
        0 0 0 0         0 0 0 0         0 0 0 0         0 0 0 0

From these matrices we draw conclusions about the number of ancestors by 
looking at the (0,0) elements (quiescent-at-infinity configurations), traces 
(periodic configurations) or summing all the elements in the matrix 
(unrestricted configurations):

           cells     quiescent  periodic  general   (= types of ancestors)

             000         1          5        10
             001         0          0         4
             010         0          0         3
             011         0          0         3
             100         0          0         4
             101         0          0         2
             110         0          0         3
             111         1          3         3
             ---         -          -        --
             sum         2          8        32

Turning to page 96 of the Atlas, we confirm that s=8 (sum of the 'periodic' 
column) and mp=5 (largest number in the 'periodic' column). The only branching 
ratios are 3 and 5 (and of course, 0), confirmed by examining the diagram at 
level 3. The fact that g=6 (GOE configurations) follows from the fact that six 
of the matrices have zero diagonal, and hence trace zero. 

None of the matrices is identically zero, so there are no poison words of 
length 3; however, the fact that the multiplicities are not uniform goes 
against the theorem (not yet discussed) about nonuniform multiplicities 
implying a Garden of Eden. 

These details relate to a tiny fraction of the information contained in the 
Atlas, but they should suffice to establish the fact that as long as one is 
prepared to multiply A and B matrices, several different types of ancestors 
can be counted. Also, if one is prepared to work with symbolic matrices 
rather than numerical matrices, quite explicit ancestors can be calculated. 

Of course, what is really wanted are general theorems about the matrices, so 
that all their products DON'T have to be calculated explicitly. 
 
Considerable space would be consumed by listing all eight tensor squares, 
but the next point can probably be made with just one of them: 

                1 . . . | . . . . | . . . . | . . . . 
                . 1 1 1 | . . . . | . . . . | . . . . 
                . . 1 1 | . . . . | . . . . | . . . . 
                . 1 1 2 | . . . . | . . . . | . . . . 
                -------------------------------------
                . . . . | 1 . . . | 1 . . . | 1 . . . 
                . . . . | . 1 1 1 | . 1 1 1 | . 1 1 1 
                . . . . | . . 1 1 | . . 1 1 | . . 1 1 
                . . . . | . 1 1 2 | . 1 1 2 | . 1 1 2  
  AAAxAAA =     -------------------------------------
                . . . . | . . . . | 1 . . . | 1 . . .  
                . . . . | . . . . | . 1 1 1 | . 1 1 1 
                . . . . | . . . . | . . 1 1 | . . 1 1  
                . . . . | . . . . | . 1 1 2 | . 1 1 2  
                -------------------------------------
                . . . . | 1 . . . | 1 . . . | 2 . . . 
                . . . . | . 1 1 1 | . 1 1 1 | . 2 2 2 
                . . . . | . . 1 1 | . . 1 1 | . . 2 2 
                . . . . | . 1 1 2 | . 1 1 2 | . 2 2 4 

Note the following comparisons: 

			(0,0) element     trace    overall sum 
                AAA          1              5            10
            AAAxAAA          1             25           100.

In each case, the corresponding quantity is squared in the tensor square. 
Examining the structure of the matrix, it isn't hard to see why. However, 
this should give a graphic illustration of why the tensor powers participate 
in the calculation of moments, and how the tensor square (the connectivity 
matrix of the pair diagram) will eventually be involved in calculating the 
variance. Note that if we want to establish zero variance, it is only 
necessary to compare the square of the first moment with the second moment. 

What is needed is (AxA+BxB)^n; when the power is expanded and all the terms 
collected, one finds one term for the square of the number of ancestors of 
each configuration. To get the third moment, take (AxAxA+BxBxB)^n, whereas 
if there were three states, there would be a C matrix, with a second moment 
expressed in terms of (AxA+BxB+CxC)^n, and so on. 

Because of the powers, we are interested in the rate of growth of the terms 
in parentheses in the last paragraph, which boils down to finding their 
largest eigenvalues or more generally, finding estimates or bounds for them. 

More commentary will follow. 

Harold V. McIntosh             |Depto. de Aplicaci'on de Microcomputadoras
mcintosh@redvax1.dgsca.unam.mx |Instituto de Ciencias/UAP
mcintosh@redvax1.bitnet        |Apdo. Postal 461
(+52+22)43-6330                |72000 Puebla, Pue., MEXICO


This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.7 : Tue Oct 14 2003 - 21:44:17 UTC