About Langton's Ant
Langton's Ant is a two-dimensional Turing machine with simple rules but complex emergent behavior, invented by Chris Langton in 1986.
Rules:
- At a white square, turn 90° clockwise, flip the color of the square, move forward one unit
- At a black square, turn 90° counter-clockwise, flip the color of the square, move forward one unit
New in v2:
- Multiple Ants: Add ants with different colors to represent different colonies
- Zoom Control: Zoom in/out to see more detail or broader patterns
- Drag the canvas to pan when zoomed in
- Larger World: 1000×1000 grid for more complex patterns to develop
- Mini-map: Shows your current position in the larger world
Behavior Modes:
- Simplicity (first few hundred moves): Simple patterns, often symmetric
- Chaos (hundreds to ~10,000 steps): Irregular, pseudo-random patterns
- Emergent Order (after ~10,000 steps): A repeating "highway" pattern of 104 steps emerges