Conway's Game of Life

John Horton Conway (1937-2020) was a British mathematician. He devised this game in the 1970’s. The game plays out on a two dimensional grid, like an infinite chessboard. It is a zero player game because, once the board is set, there doesn’t need to be any more input from a human.

The starting board can even be set up in a random state, meaning no human decisions are ever needed. You would be forgiven for thinking that such a game would be uninteresting. How wrong you would be!

Introduction

The rules of the game are simple. What’s amazing is the complex effects they create.

Try It Out

When John Conway invented the Game of Life, he used graph paper and blackboards to try it out.

Let's Automate It

The simple rules of Life made it obvious to write computer programs that play it.

Let's Be Systematic

We’ve tried evolving some random soups and we have seen a few still life patterns and some oscillator patterns.

Life Forms

People have been investigating Life for decades and they have found some really surprising patterns.