Mapping the rule table of a 2-D probabilistic cellular automaton to the chemical physics of etching and deposition

Molecules undergo only a finite number of possible chemical reactions. They can therefore be modeled as finite state machines and an array of them, in a cellular automaton, can be used to study molecular dynamics and self organization at the nanotechnology scale. The cellular automaton rule table is, in essence, a map to the molecular dynamics. We would like to use heuristic programming to design new molecules and structures in the space of cellular automata. To that end we have been investigating mapping relations between a cellular automata rule table and the chemical physics of real-world materials. We demonstrate our ideas in the domain of crystal growth and dissolution. (C) 1999 Published by Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.