Cellular automaton
Named by 2 essays across one field — each of them below, with the objects they name alongside it.
Also named here as locality — the same set of essays touches all of them, so they are one junction rather than several.
Eight rules and a triangle
A row of cells, each one deciding its next state from the three above it. Eight cases, one bit of output each — a rule that fits in a byte, and 256 of them in total. One of those bytes draws Pascal's triangle.
The rule that computes
One of the 256 elementary rules can run any program. Not simulate one, not approximate one — a machine that can compute anything computable, built from a lookup table with eight rows and nothing else.
Named alongside it
The objects these essays reach for when they reach for this one.
IterationLocalityBinaryComputationDeterminismGliderHalting problemPascals triangleRule 110Rule 90Self similarityState space