CA-Like Error Propagation in Fuzzy CA

We describe and analyze the surprising evolution of an overflow error which has occurred during the simulation of a class of continuous complex systems called 'fuzzy cellular automata'. This error not only perturbs the global behavior of the system but it generates its own interesting dynamics; in fact, it propagates over the original evolution as a binary cellular automaton in a structured, fractal-like way, regardless of the underlying system evolution. The analysis of the errors behavior suggests interesting observations about the difficulty of detecting errors and verifying results using computer simulations. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.