If you can get him into building eurorack synthesizers, he can start turning some of this math into music.

This module, for example https://www.nonlinearcircuits.com/modules/p/cellular-automat... uses networks of XOR gates to create "is a 16 cell gate and pattern generator using cellular automata rules 90 & 150".

Blinky lights in a grid that steps with those rules and can steer other modules.

I love mine.

The designer has many other wild designs based on chaotic dynamics and many other non-linear mathematical concepts. The name is kind of a giveaway.