Editing Continuous automaton

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A '''continuous automaton''' can be described as a [[cellular automaton]] extended so that the valid states a cell can take are not just discrete (for example, the states consist of [[integer]]s between 0 and 3), but continuous, for example, the [[real number]] range [0,1]. The cells however remain discretely separated from each other. One example is called [[Computational_verb_theory#Computational Verb Cellular Networks|computational verb cellular network]] (CVCN),<ref>{{cite journal | last = Yang | first = T.|title = Computational Verb Cellular Networks: Part I--A New Paradigm of Human Social Pattern Formation  | journal = International Journal of Computational Cognition | volume = 7 | issue = 1 | pages = 1–34 | publisher = [[Yang's Scientific Press]] | date = March 2009 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | last = Yang | first = T.|title = Computational Verb Cellular Networks: Part II--One-Dimensional Computational Verb Local Rules  | journal = International Journal of Computational Cognition | volume = 7 | issue = 1 | pages = 35–51 | publisher = [[Yang's Scientific Press]] | date = March 2009 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | last = Yang | first = T.|title = Computational Verb Cellular Networks: Part III--Solutions of One-Dimensional Computational Verb Cellular Networks  | journal = International Journal of Computational Cognition | volume = 7 | issue = 2 | pages = 1–11 | publisher = [[Yang's Scientific Press]] | date = June 2009 }}</ref> of which the states of cells are in the region of [0,1].

Such automata can be used to model certain physical reactions more closely, such as [[diffusion]]. One such diffusion model could conceivably consist of a transition function based on the average values of the [[neighbourhood]] of the cell. Many implementations of [[Finite Element Analysis]] can be thought of as continuous automata, though this degree of abstraction away from the physics of the problem is probably inappropriate.

[[Continuous spatial automaton|Continuous spatial automata]] resemble continuous automata in having continuous values, but they also have a continuous set of locations rather than restricting the values to a discrete grid of cells.

== See also ==

* [[Continuous spatial automaton]]
* [[Cellular automaton]]

==Reference notes==
{{Reflist|2}}

[[Category:Cellular automata]]


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