My favorite one is, by far, "Cellular Automata: A Discrete Universe" by Andrew Ilachinski (2001). It goes deep into the juicy details and has only a limited amo

My favorite one is, by far, "Cellular Automata: A Discrete Universe" by Andrew Ilachinski (2001). It goes deep into the juicy details and has only a limited amount of hand waving. You can probably find it in the local math/physics department library, or in the usual internet sources ;) There are also some articles from Wolfram that make good introductions. Mostly those from the old days in which "I" wouldn't be the subject of every second of his sentences. In particular: Universality and Complexity in Cellular Automata Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena 10, no. 1–2 (1984): 1–35 Computation Theory of Cellular Automata Communications in Mathematical Physics 96, no. 1 (1984): 15–57