The organic builder: a public experiment in artificial chemistries and self-replication.
We describe some results submitted by users of the Organic Builder, a Java applet where the rules of an artificial chemistry can be chosen in order to achieve a desired behavior. Though it was initially intended as a set of challenges to be tackled as a game, the users experimented with the system far beyond this and discovered several novel forms of self-replicators. When searching for a system with certain properties such asself-replication, making the system accessible to the public through a Web site is an unusual but effective way of making scientific discoveries, credit for which must go to the users themselves for their tireless experimentation and innovation.
Department of Computer Science, University College London, UK. tim.hutton@gmail.com
Tim J
TJ
Hutton
D000465:Algorithms; D001331:Automation; D008956:Models, Chemical; D011381:Programming Languages; D012984:Software