Conway's Game of Life

Conway's Game of Life, invented by mathematician John Conway in 1970, is a fascinating cellular automaton simulation. The game takes place on a grid where each cell can be either alive or dead. The fate of each cell is determined by its eight neighboring cells, following these simple rules:

• Any live cell with fewer than two live neighbors dies (underpopulation).
• Any live cell with two or three live neighbors lives on to the next generation.
• Any live cell with more than three live neighbors dies (overpopulation).
• Any dead cell with exactly three live neighbors becomes a live cell (reproduction).

Despite its simplicity, the Game of Life can produce incredibly complex patterns. Some notable discoveries include:

• Gliders: Small patterns that move diagonally across the grid.
• Spaceships: Larger moving patterns, like the "lightweight spaceship" (LWSS).
• Pulsars: The most common period 3 oscillator.
• Guns: Patterns that periodically emit gliders or other moving objects.

Try them out by clicking on their names!

The Game of Life has applications in various fields, including computer science, biology, and physics. It demonstrates how complex systems can emerge from simple rules, making it a powerful tool for studying emergence, self-organization, and computational universality.