Local structure theory: Calculation on hexagonal arrays,and interaction of rule and lattice

Local structure theory calculations⁷ are applied to the study of cellular automata on the two-dimensional hexagonal lattice. A particular hexagonal lattice rule denoted (3422) is considered in detail. This rule has many features in common with Conway'sLife. The local structure theory captures many of the statistical properties of this rule; this supports hypotheses raised by a study ofLife itself⁽⁶⁾. As inLife, the state of a cell under (3422) depends only on the state of the cell itself and the sum of states in its neighborhood at the previous time step. This property implies that evolution rules which operate in the same way can be studied on different lattices. The differences between the behavior of these rules on different lattices are dramatic. The mean field theory cannot reflect these differences. However, a generalization of the mean field theory, the local structure theory, does account for the rule-lattice interaction.