Collision-Based Computing

Collision-Based Computing presents a unique overview of computation with mobile self-localized patterns in non-linear media, including computation in optical media, mathematical models of massively parallel computers, and molecular systems.
It covers such diverse subjects as conservative computation in billiard ball models and its cellular-automaton analogues, implementation of computing devices in lattice gases, Conway's Game of Life and discrete excitable media, theory of particle machines, computation with solitons, logic of ballistic computing, phenomenology of computation, and self-replicating universal computers.
Collision-Based Computing will be of interest to researchers working on relevant topics in Computing Science, Mathematical Physics and Engineering. It will also be useful background reading for postgraduate courses such as Optical Computing, Nature-Inspired Computing, Artificial Intelligence, Smart Engineering Systems, Complex and Adaptive Systems, Parallel Computation, Applied Mathematics and Computational Physics.

From the reviews:

"This book contains a collection of articles on the theme of how to do computation with mobile objects or patterns in nonlinear media, as exemplified most vividly by collision-based computing. ... Each chapter in the book has its own list of references ... . This book is recommended for anyone looking for an introduction to the fascinating developing subject of collision-based computing on a non-trivial level." (Menachem Dishon, Mathematical Reviews, Issue 2007 b)