Langton's Ant
A simple cellular automaton where an "ant" follows two rules: at a white square, turn 90° right, flip the color, and move forward.
At a black square, turn 90° left, flip the color, and move forward. Despite its simplicity, it creates complex emergent behavior,
eventually building a repeating "highway" pattern after about 10,000 steps.
About Langton's Ant
- Discovery: Created by Christopher Langton in 1986
- Rules: The ant follows the "RL" rule - turn Right on white, turn Left on black, then flip the cell color
- Emergent Behavior: After ~10,000 chaotic steps, the ant builds a repeating "highway" pattern
- Universal Computation: Langton's Ant is Turing complete, meaning it can perform any computation
- Watch for: The transition from chaotic behavior to the organized highway pattern