“Automaton” (plural: “automata”) is a technical term used in computer science and mathematics for a theoretical machine that changes its internal state based on inputs and its previous state. The state set is usually defined as finite and discrete, which often causes nonlinearity in the system’s dynamics.

Cellular automata are a set of such automata arranged along a regular spatial grid, whose states are simultaneously updated by a uniformly applied state-transition function that refers to the states of their neighbors.