Life: The Wonder of Conway's Cellular Automata

[On the Road]

"Life" is not biological in this case computer simulation is built on mathematician John Conway's study of cellular automata, or mathematical patterns that emerge from a set of simple rules. In this case, cells on a grid change depending on the status of their neighbors.

Conway called the game "life" because complexity emerges out of simple ground rules.

The best thing about this link is the Java simularion in which you can experiment with your own patterns.

http://www.math.com/students/wonders/life/life.html

[HereSince1628]

1. Fun to see GOL still intellectually interesting.

It was one of the first cellular automata I played with back when an IBM-AT was the state of the art challenger to the TRS-80.

[On the Road]

2. I Actually Have Conway's Enormous Book

but never saw the computer simulation. If you scroll down to the bottom, it looks like there are some other subjects there as well.

[Speck Tater]

3. Then there is the whole "digital physics" movement

that claims the universe IS a cellular automaton. see

http://digitalphysics.org/
http://www.mtnmath.com/digital.html
http://www.digitalphilosophy.org/
http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/digitalphysics.html
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/digitalphysics/

for example.