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Complex (and trippy) patterns emerging from a simple chemical system simulation (www.youtube.com)

submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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This is a simulation of the Gray-Scott reaction-diffusion model running on the GPU. In such systems, an auto-catalytic reaction involving two chemical species is happenning concurrently with diffusion. Despite the apparent simplicity of the model, simulating it with cherry-picked sets of parameters produces a wide range of emerging behaviors.

Run it in your browser : https://www.shadertoy.com/view/lXXcz7
Detailed article : https://pierre-couy.dev/simulations/2024/09/gray-scott-shader.html

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Reminds me of a classic Nile Red video where he recreates the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction, which looks somewhat similar though I don't know enough chemistry to say if they're actually related reactions.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

I'll make sure to look into it and tell you what the differences are. The patterns definetly look similar to the "wave" or "spirals" preset from my video

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Hey ! I (superficially) looked up the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction and can confirm it is related to the Gray-Scott model.

The Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction involves an autocatalytic reaction and chemical species diffusing at different rates, just like in the Gray-Scott model. The main differences are related to constraints of doing actual chemistry instead of simulating it :

The speed constant is (roughly) fixed for any given reaction (and temperature). Scientists cannot tune speed constants like I did in the simulation
In the simulation, we constantly add some "food" and remove some catalyst. In an actual chemical reactor, there must be an process to achieve this. A real world implementation of the Gray-Scott model would probably use something like a semi-permeable membrane above/below the petri dish. In the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction, it is other chemical reactions that ensure "food" gets replenished and the catalyst gets consumed

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

How very cool! Thanks for doing the research and reporting back! I love seeing such a clear and beautiful example of two models, one virtual, sharing emergent properties and behaviors.