What is "wireworld"

Wireworld is a cellular automaton first proposed by Brian Silverman in 1987, as part of his program Phantom Fish Tank. It subsequently became more widely known as a result of an article in the "Computer Recreations" column of Scientific American. Wireworld is particularly suited to simulating electronic logic elements, or "gates", and, despite the simplicity of the rules, Wireworld is Turing-complete.