We introduce a continuous cellular automaton that presents self-organized criticality. It is one-dimensional, totally deterministic, without any embedded randomness, not even in the initial conditions. This system is in the same universality class as the Oslo rice pile, boundary driven interface depinning and the train model for earthquakes. Although the system is chaotic, in the thermodynamic limit chaos occurs only in a microscopic level.

• Received 25 January 2000

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.61.R6056