Really interesting collection of cool things you can do with Cellular Automata. I've implemented a few of the automata in the book for fun (they're all pretty s

Really interesting collection of cool things you can do with Cellular Automata. I've implemented a few of the automata in the book for fun (they're all pretty simple), but I've yet to find a real-world use for any of it. If you don't take the "this will change the world and is the most important thing since math was invented" tone too seriously, it's pretty entertaining. And who's to say, it might turn into a revolution. Certainly the ideas about complexity theory he puts forth are interesting and worth thinking about. If I had to boil it down, it would be "Any system is either trivially simplistic, or complex enough to do anything." Think logic gates built with conway's game of life, or adders built with dwarf fortress pumps, that kind of thing. He's trying to unify all complex systems with cellular automata. That's my take on it, at least. Read it a while ago. If you're interested in cellular automata or complexity, it's worth reading. This would be really cool on the ipad if the illustrations were interactive, kind of like the NKS Explorer PC app he released a few years ago. That was a fun tool to play with this stuff.