Conway's Game of Life

In April 1970, Scientific American columnist Martin Gardner wrote a description a "game of Life" invented by Princeton mathematician John Conway. (This is not the board game with the little plastic cars!) Conway's "Life" introduced most of the world to a set of mathematical constructs known as "cellular automata." In English, that means a set of highly deterministic rules played out on a checkboard-like grid.

(There are some cellular automata, though, which play out within a single-row of cells.)

The world for this game is a 32x32 grid of cells. A cell can either be "alive" or "dead." For this version, the dark cells are dead and the bright cells are alive. (The dots are just so you know where the center of a cell is located.) If you click on the cells, you can toggle a cell's state. (Try it!)

                 
  *     *     *  
                 
Lives into next generation Dies in next generation Is born in next generation
The rules of Conway's Life determine how cells live and die as time goes by. (The figures above illustrate the rules; the cell in question has a "*" in it.) The rules are quite simple: any living cell with 2 or 3 living neighbors continues to live into the next generation; all other living cells die of either crowding or loneliness. A "dead" cell with precisely three neighbors becomes alive in the next generation.

Once you've created a pattern of living cells, click on the Start button to let the script "run" the world. When all the cells die (as they might), or when you'd like to change some cells, either click on a cell, or use the stop button. Change the world around, then start it again!

For over 30 years, Conway's Life has been a subject of interest for fans of mathematics, artificial life, and even so-called "universal computing." People all over the world have discovered patterns that grow, move, and even give birth! Here are three to try. We're not going to tell you what they do, but you might be able to guess from the names! (You can always rotate the patterns; we just show them in the most convenient orientation.)

ACORN              
             
             

GLIDER      
     
     

BLINKER      
     
     

See http://www.bigdaddyo.com/~paul/glossary.html for even more patterns.

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