Conway's Game of Life

I have always been interested in the way massively complex systems can be produced with only a few controlling rules. One famous example is boids where pixels follow the rules of separation, alignment and cohesion, and end up creating an amazingly realistic model of flocking birds. Another example is Conway's game of life which was created sometime in the early 80s I think. The rules are simple:

Any occupied cells surrounded one or fewer occupied cells dies , as if by loneliness.

Any occupied cells surrounded by 4 or more occupied cells also dies, as if by overpopulation.

Any empty cells surrounded by 3 occupied cells becomes occupied.

Anyway the results are pretty cool. You can draw your own starting state cells or pick some presets from the drop down menu.

click here to launch the app

The gosper glider gun is my favorite preset.

Here is the initial stage of the gosper glider, the result of the basic gliders which float up into the other cells is to produce an infinite cycle.

This is a stage later in the cycle where loads of gliders are constantly produced by the 'gun'. Very cool!

Unfortunately this will be my last post for a while as I am about to sit my dreaded second year exams. Wish me luck :).