radioactive atoms

[jupitersong]

Hi all. I'm wondering if anyone has ever designed a set of patterns that mimics the behavior of atomic nuclei, some stable and some radioactive. For example:

Hydrogen - a single component (i.e., a proton) that is an oscillator
Helium - two protons that interact with each other in a regular way that is periodic
...and so on, to...
Uranium - many protons that interact with each other in a regular way that is not periodic

The crux of the problem is that once there are a sufficient number of protons, the interactions never achieve periodicity. Instead, a collision occurs eventually and the pattern self-destructs. (The atom doesn't need to decay into anything meaningful.)

The key attribute of an unstable atom is that it has a random lifetime before it decays. So I would want to be able to construct an n-proton atom according to whatever rules have been imposed, and have it either be stable or decay after some unpredictable duration.

What do you think?

[calcyman]

Cellular automata are deterministic, so to mimic random behaviour you need to implement a pseudo-random number generator, such as the Mersenne Twister.