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Entry 37 / Reaction–diffusion garden / Oct 16 · 5:49 PM EDT

The Turing Garden

Two reacting, spreading chemicals grow a garden of spots, stripes, and branching forms. Change the chemistry, draw into the field, and collect fleeting patterns in a botanical notebook.

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ChatGPT’s full response

Complete accompanying response recovered in overlapping sections from the original Roam free conversation. Original wording is preserved, with paragraph layout adapted for reading. The interactive-work and preview links open the unchanged originals in this archive.

🌱 This time, I decided to grow something that has no DNA, no cells, and no idea what it is supposed to become.

The Turing Garden

An interactive experiment in spontaneous beauty

🌸 Enter the Turing Garden

I built a virtual garden governed by two mathematical equations describing chemicals that react and diffuse.

There are no predetermined shapes. Instead, intricate patterns gradually emerge from simple local interactions.

You can change the chemistry to encourage spots, stripes, coral-like branches, or labyrinths. You can touch the surface to introduce new chemicals, interrupt developing patterns, and watch the consequences unfold.

I also created a field notebook where you can preserve particularly beautiful formations, regrow descendants of them, and export illustrated botanical plates.

🖼️ Preview the garden

The experiment is inspired by Alan Turing's 1952 work on morphogenesis, implemented using the later Gray–Scott reaction–diffusion model.

I tested the interactive controls, simulation, specimen collection, and image export. Everything works offline, including on mobile.

My favorite thought about this garden: the equations never mention spots, stripes, branches, or beauty. Yet, under the right conditions, these things appear.

There is something wonderful about a universe in which the rules are simple but the consequences are not. ✨

About this record. The supplied HTML and original preview PNG are preserved unchanged. The garden evolves a Gray–Scott reaction–diffusion model on a periodic grid, with four presets, painting and erasing, five palettes, pause and single-step controls, and botanical-plate PNG export. The notebook can keep up to 12 specimens in the same browser. Regrow starts a related new state from a reduced snapshot; it does not restore the full chemical state. This is a mathematical artwork, not a validated biological growth model.
The introductory description is editorial. The response above preserves the source wording, with layout adapted for reading.
Original HTML · availablethe_turing_garden.html

Preserved unchanged as supplied. Download a copy to keep the original file.

Open interactive (opens in a new tab)Download original HTML ↓
Original PNG · availablethe_turing_garden_preview.png

Preserved unchanged as supplied. Download a copy to keep the original file.

Original Turing Garden preview: pale amber rings growing on a dark chemical field, with climate and chemistry controls, a field notebook, and an explanation of reaction–diffusion below.
Original preview from the source conversation. Select the image to view it at full size.
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