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(commonly called a-life) is the term applied collectively to attempts being made to develop mathematical models and computer simulations of the ways in which living organisms develop, grow, and evolve. Researchers in this burgeoning field hope to gain deeper insi ....

Middle of Essay
.... had been in progress long before the 1980s. Most notably, the Hungarian-born U.S. mathematician John VON NEUMANN, one of the pioneers of computer science, had begun to explore the nature of very basic a-life formats called cellular automata (see AUTOMATA, THEORY OF) in the 1950s. Cellular automata are imaginary mathematical "cells" --analogous to checkerboard squares--that can be made to simulate physical processes by subjecting them to certain simple rules called algorithms (see ALGORITHM). Before his death, von Neumann had developed a set of algorithms by which a cellular automaton--a box shape with a very long tail--could "reproduce" itself. ....