Bio

Kerry Cheng is a rising senior at Montgomery Blair High School in Maryland. He has a very large interest in mathematics and computer science. He plans to major in computer science and pursue a career in video games.

Project: Space/Time Periodic Perturbations of Cellular Automata

This project examines how cellular automata evolve with perturbations in the middle of evolution, starting with just elementary cellular automata (ECA) and expanding to rules with more colors and different radii. To show the effects of perturbations, one cell will randomly be changed from 1 to 0 or vice versa, and the evolution will be observed for change. This will be tested by choosing a random cell in a random row and choosing a random cell in the same row for every rule. Another test will be to periodically change a random cell, because just changing one cell is equivalent to having a different initial condition.

Favorite Radius 3/2 Rule

Rule 233

My favorite rule is 233. It’s because the evolution reminds me of a spinning disco ball.