Reversible cellular automata

Abstract

Reversible cellular automata (RCA) are models of massively parallel computation that preserve information. This paper is a short survey of research on reversible cellular automata over the past fourty plus years. We discuss the classic results by Hedlund, Moore and Myhill that relate injectivity, surjectivity and reversibility with each other. Then we review algorithmic questions and some results on computational universality. Finally we talk about local reversibility vs. global reversibility. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.