Abstract
| - Cellular automata are dynamical systems composed ofarrays of cells that change their states in a discretemanner following local, but globally applied, rules. It is shownthat a two-dimensional asynchronous cellularautomaton simulates both the deterministic and the stochastic featuresof first-order chemical kinetic processesin an especially simple manner, avoiding the chore of solving eitherthe deterministic coupled differentialrate equations or the stochastic master equation. Processesillustrated include first-order decay, opposingfirst-order reactions, consecutive reactions, the steady-stateapproximation, a rate-limiting step, pre-equilibrium,and parallel competing reactions. The deterministic solutions areseen to emerge as statistical averages inthe limit of large cell numbers. Some additional stochastic andstatistical features of the solutions areexamined.
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