Minimal Glider-Gun in a 2D Cellular Automaton

Abstract: To understand the underlying principles of self-organisation and computation in cellular automata, it would be helpful to find the simplest form of the essential ingredients, glider-guns and eaters, because then the dynamics would be easier to interpret. Such minimal components emerge spontaneously in the newly discovered Sayab-rule, a binary 2D cellular automaton with a Moore neighborhood and isotropic dynamics. The Sayab-rule has the smallest glider-gun reported to date, consisting of just four live cells at its minimal phases. We show that the Sayab-rule can implement complex dynamical interactions and the gates required for logical universality.