Conway’s Game of Life

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Life Lexicon

Glider

The smallest, most common and first discovered spaceship. This was found by Richard Guy in 1970 while Conway's group was attempting to track the evolution of the R-pentomino. The name is due in part to the fact that it is glide symmetric. (It is often stated that Conway discovered the glider, but he himself has said it was Guy. See also the cryptic reference ("some guy") in Winning Ways.)

Game of Life pattern ’glider’

The term "glider" is also occasionally (mis)used to mean "spaceship".

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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