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)

Twin bees shuttle spark

The large and distinctive long-lived spark produced, most commonly, by the twin bees shuttle. It starts off as shown below.

Game of Life pattern ’twin_bees_shuttle_spark_(1)’

After 3 generations it becomes symmetric along the horizontal axis, after 9 generations it becomes symmetric along the vertical axis also, and finally dies after 18 generations.

Since the spark is isolated and long-lived, there are many possible perturbations that it can perform. One of the most useful is demonstrated in metamorphosis where a glider is converted into a LWSS. Another useful one can turn a LWSS by 90 degrees:

Game of Life pattern ’twin_bees_shuttle_spark_(2)’

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

Implemented by Edwin Martin <>