Conway’s Game of Life

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Life Lexicon

This Life lexicon is compiled by Stephen A. Silver from various sources and may be copied, modified and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported licence. See the original credit page for all credits and the original download location. (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Boojum reflector

Dave Greene's name for the following 180-degree glider reflector which he found in April 2001, winning $100 bounties offered by Alan Hensel and Dieter Leithner. The name is taken from Lewis Carroll's _The Hunting of the Snark_, referring to the fact that a small 90-degree stable reflector was really what was wanted. 180-degree reflectors are relatively undesirable and have limited use in larger circuitry constructions.

The boojum reflector was the smallest and fastest known stable reflector until the discovery of the rectifier in 2009, followed by the Snark in 2013.

Game of Life pattern ’boojum_reflector’

Game of Life Explanation

The Game of Life is not your typical computer game. It is a cellular automaton, and was invented by Cambridge mathematician John Conway.

This game became widely known when it was mentioned in an article published by Scientific American in 1970. It consists of a grid of cells which, based on a few mathematical rules, can live, die or multiply. Depending on the initial conditions, the cells form various patterns throughout the course of the game.

Rules

For a space that is populated:
Examples

Each cell with one or no neighbors dies, as if by solitude.

Each cell with four or more neighbors dies, as if by overpopulation.

Each cell with two or three neighbors survives.

For a space that is empty or unpopulated:

Each cell with three neighbors becomes populated.

More information

Video’s about the Game of Life

Stephen Hawkings The Meaning of Life (John Conway's Game of Life segment)
The rules are explained in Stephen Hawkings’ documentary The Meaning of Life
Inventing Game of Life (John Conway) - Numberphile
John Conway himself talks about the Game of Life

Interesting articles about John Conway

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