phyllis@utcsrgv.UUCP (Phyllis Eve Bregman) (01/26/84)
UofT Department of Computer Science Seminar Schedule for the week of January 30th, 1984 Wednesday, February 1st, 4:00 P.M., SF3202: Professor Peter Gacs, Department of Computer Science, Boston University: "Reliable computation with cellular automata". ABSTRACT: We construct a one-dimensional array of cellular automata on which arbitrarily large computations can be implemented reliably, even though each automaton at each step makes an error with some constant probability. To compute reliably with unreliable components, von Neumann proposed Boolean circuits whose intricate interconnection pattern (arising from error-correcting organization) he had to assume to be immune to errors. In a uniform cellular medium, the error-correcting organization exists only in "software", therefore errors threaten to disable it. The real technical novelty of the paper is therefore the construction of a self-repairing organization. -- Phyllis Eve Bregman CSRG, Univ. of Toronto {decvax,linus,ihnp4,uw-beaver,allegra,utzoo}!utcsrgv!phyllis