official website of the course: https://edu.epfl.ch/coursebook/en/cellular-automata-and-models-of-artificial-life-MATH-527
Course Materials
I am currently in the process of writing lecture notes for the course and I will progressively update them here. Since this is the first draft, if you spot any mistake or have any remarks, I would greatly appreciate if you let me know.
- Lecture Notes Chapter 1: Self-Reference in Programs last updated: 3.3.2026
- Lecture Notes Chapter 2: The Logic of Self-Replication last updated: 19.3.2026
- Lecture Notes Chapter 3: Beyond Exact Self-Replication last updated: 19.3.2026
Lectures
- Lecture 1: Introduction to the course, Turing machines, Computability.
Part 1 Recording, Part 2 Recording, we covered pages 1–4 from the lecture notes chapter 1. - Lecture 2: Universal Turing machines, Undecidability.
Part 1 Recording, Part 2 Recording, we covered pages 5–9 from the lecture notes chapter 1. - Lecture 3: Quines, Kleene’s Recursion Theorems.
Part 1 Recording, Part 2 Recording, we covered pages 9–15 from the lecture notes chapter 1. - Lecture 4: Von Neumann’s kinematic model, and CA self-replicator.
Part 1 Recording, Part 2 Recording, we covered pages 1–10 from the lecture notes chapter 2. - Lecture 5: Von Neumann’s CA self-replicator and Broader Vision.
Part 1 Recording, Part 2 Recording, we covered pages 11–20 from the lecture notes chapter 2, and pages 1–2 from lecture notes chapter 3.
Worksheets
Software Tools