Wolfram on randomness and RNGs

[Ben Laurie]

Eric Cordian wrote:
> Steve Schear writes:
> 
> 
>>Stephen Wolfram's book, "A New Kind of Science," is nothing if not 
>>interesting.  This encyclopedia-sized volume traces how his fascination 
>>with cellular automata, beginning in the 1970s, led him to spend decades 
>>exploring the significance of complexity created from simple rules.
> 
> 
> I bought a copy the day it came out.  It's an interesting read, but as far
> as I can tell, contains nothing of startling import.  It contains not a
> single proof.  It merely suggests that Cellular Automata are sufficiently
> rich to model any physical process, and maybe someone, someday, will use
> them for that purpose.
> 
> Then again, so are Turing Machines.

Conway proved long ago that cellular automata can model Turing machines 
(see "Winning Ways", Berlekamp, Guy and Conway (in some order I forget) 
for the proof - and many other amusing distractions).

Cheers,

Ben.

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