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Archive 1Archive 2

Glider Synthesis

Is there a glider synthesis program that, when given a pattern, attempts to form it using only gliders? If not, I am a computer programmer, and I could try to make one. I really would like it if one exists. Uber-Awesomeness (talk) 17:21, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Conway's Game of Life is NOT Turning Complete

I only added a [citation needed] on the article on the part that says that is turning complete but I'm almost positive that that is incorrect. Unless someone has a reliable source this has to be fixed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.230.178.113 (talk) 13:49, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

  1. It's Turing, not Turning.
  2. It is correct.
  3. It was already sourced properly elsewhere in the article.
  4. I linked the same sources to the place where you put the [citation needed] tag. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:09, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
    1. That's not an adequate source.
    2. 1. It's a simple web page, not a adequate source for wikipedia.
    3. 2. The author of that page have not PROBED that it's a UNIVERSAL turing machine, he only made one turing machine in conway's game on life and SAYS it's extensible to a universal one.
    4. 3. Capacity to do boolean operations means that conway's game of life is capable of calculating "propositional logic", saying that this is the same as being Turing Complete is an embarrassing mistake. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.139.26.79 (talk) 22:35, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Since when are books by experts in the subject (Conway) not considered adequate? And it would be an embarrassing mistake if that's all they did, but Conway's book also includes a description of an unbounded memory device which together with the logic circuits is enough to simulate 3-counter machines and therefore Turing machines. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:58, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

  1. Ok now it's looking like it's well sourced. When I made the comment the second reference was not there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.139.26.79 (talk) 04:42, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Switch Engine?

Um... I'm pretty good at life, (I like making infinity-grow patterns) but I still don't know what a "switch engine" is. Explain please?

PS: I have also made a few interesting (in my opinion) infinity growers. Should I show them here? (in the talk page) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.253.119.114 (talk) 23:45, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

A switch engine by itself is just a particular pattern (see here) that is useful in constructing slow-moving spaceships and puffers. The reason they come up in infinite-growth patterns is because they can be used to produce puffers, the most common of which is the block-laying switch engine (to see what it looks like, let the 10-cell infinite growth pattern described in the article run for a few hundred generations). I'd be interested in seeing your infinite-growth patterns, though a more appropriate place might be some Life forums, so as to keep this talk page actually about the article itself. JokeySmurf (talk) 11:33, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Animated GIF of a LWSS

In the same manner I added an animation of a glider (below), I did it now for a LWSS. Feel free to improve it. RodrigoCamargo (talk) 16:35, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Very nice animations! I'm interested to know whether you created them manually (eg. in Photoshop), or used some software to generate them automatically? I know Golly allows the creation of very basic animated GIFs, but nothing as nice as your animations. —Slowspace (talk) 19:07, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
I made a tool for making exactly these types of animations. Just enter your pattern at www.conwaylife.com, select "Save -> Download Image", change the format to "Animated GIF" and set the options (like whether or not you want the animation to pan). A help page is located here if you have trouble. An example animation made with the tool is available here. JokeySmurf (talk) 16:11, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Animated GIF of a glider

I find the graphic "standard" used in the pictures inside the article really interesting: grey grid on a white background, with black live cells. However, one of the most interesting pictures of the article - the animated glider - does not fit this standard. So I replaced the old image with this new one that I did. I noticed also that the old image was also used in some other articles. Maybe someone finds it better to replace the old image, uploading it again with the same name of it. Feel free to do it (giving proper credit) or to modify it, as I release it into the public domain. RodrigoCamargo (talk) 01:12, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Life32

Re the ref: I linked to a webpage about Life32... Perhaps the source should in fact be Life32 itself. I'm sure it's OK but needs to be made clear. Bookgirl 12:56, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The page you linked does not seem to mention Life32 at all. (Perhaps you put the wrong link in by mistake?) Anyway, I've changed it to point to the main download page for Life32. --Zundark 13:06, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Ah, yes. I went to the same Life32 download page and got the link from this part: "Life32 is a player for Conway's game of life and related cellular automa. If that does not ring a bell, look here". What I linked to was the 'here'. There was a logic there (sort of). Your solution better, tho. :-) Bookgirl 13:20, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Oscillating objects

Thre are some other oscilating objects in 23/3 (2G3): 


0-Laser: XX         XX     4-Laser   XX
         X     <=>  XX               X X
            X         XX
           XX         XX               X X

                                         X X
                                          XX


Pulsator:    X    X     Unruhe(2):  X         XX
           XX XXXX XX               XX  <=>  X
             X    X                 XX          X
                                     X        XX

4-Takter:       XX
                XX

              XXXX
          XX X  X X
          XX XX   X
             X X  X XX
             X    X XX
              XXXX

              XX
              XX

Here a special List:

Name:       Maximum:  Minimum:    Art:             4G3   45G3   2G3
                                                  34/3  345/3  23/3
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Kegel            G3       0  45678G3  oszilierend   X      X
Pedal            G3       01 45678G3  oszilierend   X      X
Strudel          G3          45678G3  oszilierend   X      X
Unruhe           G3       0 245678G3  oszilierend   X      X
0G3_OBJ         0G3       01 45678G3  oszilierend  
1G3_OBJ(1)      1G3       01 45678G3  oszilierend
1G3_OBJ(2)      1G3       01 45678G3  oszilierend
1G3_OBJ(3)      1G3       01 45678G3  oszilierend
1G3_OBJ(4)      1G3       01 45678G3  oszilierend
Pseudo_Gleiter  1G3       01   678G3  oszilierend
2G3_OBJ(1)      2G3       0 245678G3  oszilierend                X
Gleiter         2G3       0 2 5678G3  bewegend                   X
n-Laser (n=0)   2G3       012 5678G3  oszilierend                X
n-Laser (n=2)   2G3       0 245678G3  oszilierend                X
n-Laser (n>2)   2G3         245678G3  oszilierend                X
Pulsator        2G3       0 2     G3  oszilierend                X
Segler(1)       2G3         2   78G3  bewegend                   X
Segler(2)       2G3         2    8G3  bewegend                   X
Segler(3)       2G3         2     G3  bewegend                   X
Fontaine        2G3       0 2  678G3  oszilierend                X
Unruhe(2)       2G3       0 2 5678G3  oszilierend                X
Viertakter      2G3       0 2 5678G3  oszilierend                X
4G3_OBJ(3)      4G3       0  4  78G3  oszilierend   X
Frosch          4G3       01 45678G3  oszilierend   X      X
Strange         4G3       0  4  78G3  oszilierend   X
Schwimmer(1)    5G3       0  456 8G3  bewegend      X      X
Schwimmer(2)    5G3       0   56 8G3  bewegend             X
5G3-Segler      5G3       ??????????  bewegend
5G3-Beweger     5G3       ??????????  bewegend

(not complete)

--217.233.250.157 10:26, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC) in www.wikipedia.de Benutzer:Arbol01 

Pseudo_glider:   X       X        X       X
                X   => X   X => X  X => X X
               XXXX     XXX     X  X     XX
                        XX       X X      X

Four 13/3-objects:  X X      X X       X       X    X      X    X      X
                    X X <=> X   X      X      X     X  <=>  X   X  <=>  X
                    X X      X X        X <=>  X     X      X    X     X
                                       X      X                 X      X
                                       X       X

--217.233.250.157 10:40, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

R-pentomino?

In this article there is written about a "R-pentomino", yet in the article on pentomino's there is not mentioned a such pentomino.

True. It should have said "R-shaped F-pentomino". I've fixed it. - UtherSRG 18:19, Feb 5, 2005 (UTC)
In Life it's always called the R-pentomino, because that's what Conway called it. I've reworded it. (Also, the anonymous poster above is incorrect in saying that there is no mention of "R-penomino" in the pentomino article. There is such a mention, added by Maury Markowitz more than a year ago.) --Zundark, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

positional variations and local connectivity variations

all the variations in the life family considers the _number_ of neighboring cells. Where can one read about 2d CA that considers the position of neighbors, besides number? Also, there is zero info on life with different grids. (i.e. triangular, hexagonal, or any tilings/network) Thanks. Xah Lee 00:44, 2005 Apr 5 (UTC)

Such CA wouldn't be life-like, and don't really deserve a place in this article. Perhaps you would be better off requesting some references for such games in the Cellular automaton article, or better yet creating a List of cellular automata. 192.152.5.250 16:35, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Back in the 1980s, I implemented a simple version of Life on the Commodore PET using the standard rules. I also tried a variation based on the 8 "neighbouring" cells being one knight's move away, rather than the usual 8 cells in the surrounding square, albeit still using the standard rules. Thus it acquired some sense of action at a distance. Seeding it with the R-pentomino gave results that seemed even more chaotic and unpredictable than for the original game. This concept was never published, as I did not even think of it as "original research". Back then I considered naming it as KnightLife, though such a name nowadays gives a large number of unrelated hits in Google. I would be quite happy for others to take this further. DFH 14:07, 17 September 2005 (UTC)


Simple Replicator

If you glue the east and west sides together then a horizantial line going all the way around the universe is a replicator.--SurrealWarrior 19:31, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Should there not always be a finite amount of live cells in a starting position? Your line would be infinitely long. Qevlarr 21:24, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Can it be done?

Can a Thue generating glider gun or still life puffer be made?--SurrealWarrior 20:09, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Overcategorisation

The new "links" section overcategorizes and is far less than useful.

Some sites have both patterns and also software available for download. There's no consistent way to categorize links to such sites.

If the links don't direct users searching for software to Al Hensel's site they aren't very useful. Al has created the best damn Java Life Applet anywhere, he's giving it away for free, but unless a Wikipedia user checks the "External Article Links" section and clicks on the link they won't find it.

Hensel's free applet is nowhere to be found in the "Life Program Links" section.

Links which are most relevent should be placed first while links which are least relevent should go last. I fail to see how "Terminal-based Game of Life for Unix/Linux" is relevent enough to Wikipedia users to place it second in a list of fourteen. Mirek's free program is ninth. Who knows or cares about the "J Programming Language" in the third link?

An anon user added this link to the bottom: *Thermodynamic Life Game - New Thermodynamic Life Game, based on "Conservation of Energy Law". This is to a chinese language (largely) article. I've removed this (as it is not an English page) but thought I would leave that link here on the off chance, and all that. Dxco 05:17, 1 November 2005 (UTC)


Ok. The links section now has way way way more links than needed. Could we perhaps not add anymore? I fear that this article will soon have more lines of links than article text :P Dxco 19:06, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Stephen Wolfram's NKOSc mention?

Shouldn't there be some sort of mention of Stephen Wolfram and his New Kind of Science?--sciyoshi 10:10, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

B1/S23 Universe Properties

I was fooling around in The Game of Life and found that in the B1/S23 universe that Sierpinski's triangle appeared in very simple formations. I don't know why this is (I'm just a high school student) but it seems interesting enough to merit a mention in the article. I would invite someone else to write this because I can't explain it.

Sierpinski's triangle would appear in simple formations, such as a 5x5 cross.

If anyone can explain this in laymans terms I would like to hear it.


--Directrixx 20:28, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Clarify: blinker and boundary conditions (?)

Is it me? I don't understand why the blinker should be an oscillator. I suspect this might have to do with periodic boundary conditions, but the text seems obscure. Please clarify 213.140.21.231 11:31, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

See oscillator. Why shouldn't it be? Dysprosia 13:14, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Computer time

At one time it was claimed that, since 1970, more computer time worldwide had been devoted to the Game of Life than any other single activity[citation needed].

This is pretty useless when it doesn't mention when this "one time" was. At least today it seems pretty far off, compared to e.g. weather simulations or render farms. --Big gun 22:55, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. I have removed the statement. If a solid citation can be provided for this you're more than welcome to reinstate it, but I am extremely skeptical. --INTRIGUEBLUE (talk|contribs) 07:16, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Infinite-3

is not true, try it yourself. 89.1.175.210 18:28, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I tried it and it worked (two block-laying switch engines), so I think you must have entered it incorrectly. Try copying and pasting the following into your favorite Life app: ********.*****...***......*******.***** --Zundark 21:16, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
The pattern is totally correct. Who discovered it? And when? She/He deserves credit. Thanks in advance! -- Pichote (talk) 01:16, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
I found the answer here and the pattern here:) In October 1998. Paul Callahan did an exhaustive search, finding the smallest example with is 39x1 and produces two block-laying switch engines. Well, it has been almost ten years since then -- Pichote (talk) 01:29, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
Paul Callahan found it and reported it to a private mailing list of Life enthusiasts in October 1998. The method was exhaustive enumeration of sequences that don't contain any isolated live cells or pairs of live cells. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:29, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
Nor composed only by 3-cell and 4-cells groups. :) -- Pichote (talk) 01:36, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
You could make that restriction as well, but Callahan's email only mentions the 1-cell and 2-cell groups. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:41, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
Thank you! -- Pichote (talk) 01:46, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Question

Maybe a wrong place to put this here, but I've done some of my own still lifes (which is pretty easy), but I'm wanting to make my own oscillator.

Is there any tips to make oscillators? I mean, here's one I'm trying to do: 

#D0116C174
#r S23/B3
#P -6 -9
..**...
..**...
.......
..****.
.*....*
.**...*
*...**.
*....*.
.****..
.......
...**..
...**..

(just copy and paste that into Life32)

I'm trying to make my own "hustler" or "babbling brook", but dunno what term is correct for that =P

I was wondering if anyone can redirect me something like a forum regarding Life32, so I can get more help there.

So, apologies if this is in the wrong place =) --Burai 10:36, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

It would be hard to find any really new non-compound oscillators by hand these days, as so much is now known. Usually these things are now found using search programs such as WinLifeSearch. You can get some of these programs from Jason Summers' web site. --Zundark 19:19, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Sierpinski Gasket???

I found this when messing with Life32.Doomed Rasher 18:05, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Sierpinski Gasket???
Okay, okay, fine, I'll be more descriptive next time. The first image is generated by placing a sufficiently long horizontal/vertical line segment in Life 32 with the regular Conway's rules. When the two gaskets collide the stram of gliders that it shot out will form a rhombus with angles 120 and 60. The second image which I am kind enough to provide is the generation of a perfect Sierpinski gasket with a diagonal line segment sufficiently long in the /2 universe. The entire gaket is made up of the /2 blinker, two diagonally adjacent cells. When the two gaskets collide either the life form remains stable or the gasket will be consumed by chaos by the /2 exploder, depending on the length of the diagonal segment (even=chaos, odd=stable life).

I found the same results at a Conway's game of Life Applet by Alan Hensel. I call it The Principal of Collapsing Rods.

Perfect sierpinski gasket in the /2 universe.
P.S. Every lightspeed spaceship in /2 that has wings longer than two units is a puffer.
P.P.S. Here's the code for the initiation of the second gasket if you want it.
#D010493E8
x = 711, y = 711, rule = S/B2
710bo$709bo$708bo$707bo$706bo$705bo$704bo$703bo$702bo$701bo$700bo$699b
o$698bo$697bo$696bo$695bo$694bo$693bo$692bo$691bo$690bo$689bo$688bo$
687bo$686bo$685bo$684bo$683bo$682bo$681bo$680bo$679bo$678bo$677bo$676b
o$675bo$674bo$673bo$672bo$671bo$670bo$669bo$668bo$667bo$666bo$665bo$
664bo$663bo$662bo$661bo$660bo$659bo$658bo$657bo$656bo$655bo$654bo$653b
o$652bo$651bo$650bo$649bo$648bo$647bo$646bo$645bo$644bo$643bo$642bo$
641bo$640bo$639bo$638bo$637bo$636bo$635bo$634bo$633bo$632bo$631bo$630b
o$629bo$628bo$627bo$626bo$625bo$624bo$623bo$622bo$621bo$620bo$619bo$
618bo$617bo$616bo$615bo$614bo$613bo$612bo$611bo$610bo$609bo$608bo$607b
o$606bo$605bo$604bo$603bo$602bo$601bo$600bo$599bo$598bo$597bo$596bo$
595bo$594bo$593bo$592bo$591bo$590bo$589bo$588bo$587bo$586bo$585bo$584b
o$583bo$582bo$581bo$580bo$579bo$578bo$577bo$576bo$575bo$574bo$573bo$
572bo$571bo$570bo$569bo$568bo$567bo$566bo$565bo$564bo$563bo$562bo$561b
o$560bo$559bo$558bo$557bo$556bo$555bo$554bo$553bo$552bo$551bo$550bo$
549bo$548bo$547bo$546bo$545bo$544bo$543bo$542bo$541bo$540bo$539bo$538b
o$537bo$536bo$535bo$534bo$533bo$532bo$531bo$530bo$529bo$528bo$527bo$
526bo$525bo$524bo$523bo$522bo$521bo$520bo$519bo$518bo$517bo$516bo$515b
o$514bo$513bo$512bo$511bo$510bo$509bo$508bo$507bo$506bo$505bo$504bo$
503bo$502bo$501bo$500bo$499bo$498bo$497bo$496bo$495bo$494bo$493bo$492b
o$491bo$490bo$489bo$488bo$487bo$486bo$485bo$484bo$483bo$482bo$481bo$
480bo$479bo$478bo$477bo$476bo$475bo$474bo$473bo$472bo$471bo$470bo$469b
o$468bo$467bo$466bo$465bo$464bo$463bo$462bo$461bo$460bo$459bo$458bo$
457bo$456bo$455bo$454bo$453bo$452bo$451bo$450bo$449bo$448bo$447bo$446b
o$445bo$444bo$443bo$442bo$441bo$440bo$439bo$438bo$437bo$436bo$435bo$
434bo$433bo$432bo$431bo$430bo$429bo$428bo$427bo$426bo$425bo$424bo$423b
o$422bo$421bo$420bo$419bo$418bo$417bo$416bo$415bo$414bo$413bo$412bo$
411bo$410bo$409bo$408bo$407bo$406bo$405bo$404bo$403bo$402bo$401bo$400b
o$399bo$398bo$397bo$396bo$395bo$394bo$393bo$392bo$391bo$390bo$389bo$
388bo$387bo$386bo$385bo$384bo$383bo$382bo$381bo$380bo$379bo$378bo$377b
o$376bo$375bo$374bo$373bo$372bo$371bo$370bo$369bo$368bo$367bo$366bo$
365bo$364bo$363bo$362bo$361bo$360bo$359bo$358bo$357bo$356bo$355bo$354b
o$353bo$352bo$351bo$350bo$349bo$348bo$347bo$346bo$345bo$344bo$343bo$
342bo$341bo$340bo$339bo$338bo$337bo$336bo$335bo$334bo$333bo$332bo$331b
o$330bo$329bo$328bo$327bo$326bo$325bo$324bo$323bo$322bo$321bo$320bo$
319bo$318bo$317bo$316bo$315bo$314bo$313bo$312bo$311bo$310bo$309bo$308b
o$307bo$306bo$305bo$304bo$303bo$302bo$301bo$300bo$299bo$298bo$297bo$
296bo$295bo$294bo$293bo$292bo$291bo$290bo$289bo$288bo$287bo$286bo$285b
o$284bo$283bo$282bo$281bo$280bo$279bo$278bo$277bo$276bo$275bo$274bo$
273bo$272bo$271bo$270bo$269bo$268bo$267bo$266bo$265bo$264bo$263bo$262b
o$261bo$260bo$259bo$258bo$257bo$256bo$255bo$254bo$253bo$252bo$251bo$
250bo$249bo$248bo$247bo$246bo$245bo$244bo$243bo$242bo$241bo$240bo$239b
o$238bo$237bo$236bo$235bo$234bo$233bo$232bo$231bo$230bo$229bo$228bo$
227bo$226bo$225bo$224bo$223bo$222bo$221bo$220bo$219bo$218bo$217bo$216b
o$215bo$214bo$213bo$212bo$211bo$210bo$209bo$208bo$207bo$206bo$205bo$
204bo$203bo$202bo$201bo$200bo$199bo$198bo$197bo$196bo$195bo$194bo$193b
o$192bo$191bo$190bo$189bo$188bo$187bo$186bo$185bo$184bo$183bo$182bo$
181bo$180bo$179bo$178bo$177bo$176bo$175bo$174bo$173bo$172bo$171bo$170b
o$169bo$168bo$167bo$166bo$165bo$164bo$163bo$162bo$161bo$160bo$159bo$
158bo$157bo$156bo$155bo$154bo$153bo$152bo$151bo$150bo$149bo$148bo$147b
o$146bo$145bo$144bo$143bo$142bo$141bo$140bo$139bo$138bo$137bo$136bo$
135bo$134bo$133bo$132bo$131bo$130bo$129bo$128bo$127bo$126bo$125bo$124b
o$123bo$122bo$121bo$120bo$119bo$118bo$117bo$116bo$115bo$114bo$113bo$
112bo$111bo$110bo$109bo$108bo$107bo$106bo$105bo$104bo$103bo$102bo$101b
o$100bo$99bo$98bo$97bo$96bo$95bo$94bo$93bo$92bo$91bo$90bo$89bo$88bo$
87bo$86bo$85bo$84bo$83bo$82bo$81bo$80bo$79bo$78bo$77bo$76bo$75bo$74bo$
73bo$72bo$71bo$70bo$69bo$68bo$67bo$66bo$65bo$64bo$63bo$62bo$61bo$60bo$
59bo$58bo$57bo$56bo$55bo$54bo$53bo$52bo$51bo$50bo$49bo$48bo$47bo$46bo$
45bo$44bo$43bo$42bo$41bo$40bo$39bo$38bo$37bo$36bo$35bo$34bo$33bo$32bo$
31bo$30bo$29bo$28bo$27bo$26bo$25bo$24bo$23bo$22bo$21bo$20bo$19bo$18bo$
17bo$16bo$15bo$14bo$13bo$12bo$11bo$10bo$9bo$8bo$7bo$6bo$5bo$4bo$3bo$bb
o$bo$o!

It works in life 32.Doomed Rasher 21:23, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

By the way, the ending is stable, so you don't have to worry about your computer overloading. Two main gaskets and two miniature ones branching off showing the general SG structure and why not every diagonal line segment leads to two side-by-side gaskets.Doomed Rasher 21:36, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
This looks more relevant for Seeds (CA) since that's the rule you're using. However Sierpinski gaskets are known for other rules, e.g. see this replicator-base Sierpinski in HighLife. —David Eppstein 21:38, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

WinLifeSearch question..

If anyone has the WinLifeSearch program, I've got a problem... You know this "Translation" thing, right? Well, it says that you can use that for spaceship and fuse searches. The thing is, I don't understand it, even if I read the help files...

So can someone give me some advice on how to use the Translation section correctly?

PS: If this is in the wrong place, I apologise.

--Burai 17:18, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

The "life program links" section is getting unmanageably and uselessly large. There must have been millions of Life programs out there (he says, having probably written a dozen or two himself) and it's not helpful to anybody to list them all. Can we agree on some standards for how notable a program must be to be listed here? I'd like a criterion that leads to a very small number (at most half a dozen) of widely used and generally usable systems, such that for each one we can state clear reasons for why that system is notable enough to deserve its place on the list, e.g.

  • Mirek's Cellebration: widely used Windows system with good support for variant rules allowing multiple states and different neighborhoods than Life
  • Golly: well-engineered open-source cross-platform system for Life-like rules, incorporating hashlife for extremely fast simulation as well as Python scriptability and an extensive pattern library

I'm at a bit of a loss for other systems deserving to be on this list — xlife maybe, as probably the most widely used Unix program, but I don't know of any capability it has that Golly doesn't do better. Suggestions, with justifications for notability? —David Eppstein 20:36, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

The current random assortment of Life-program links is vaguely interesting to look through, but it could certainly stand to be sorted into priority order, at the very least. And I must admit there's no shortage of similar lists of links elsewhere on the Web, so mercilessly truncating this one probably wouldn't hurt. Let's see, if we're aiming for links that a non-Game-of-Life-fanatic might actually follow:
  • In my book, Alan Hensel's Java applet (from the External Links section) rates a place on the short list of Life programs: it's a really nice clean implementation that lets people explore a lot of carefully documented, impressive Life patterns from a Web browser, _without_ having to download or install (or compile!) anything. -- Well, maybe a Java VM, depending on the browser...
  • Life32's reputation has gotten a bit tarnished lately, due to things like RLE-header and XOR-pasting bugs in the 2.16 version -- but it still has a number of significant editing features that Golly can't match yet: support for multiple tabbed pages, a drag-and-drop scrapbook, and the ability (shared with MCell) to automate the editor using the language of one's choice.
  • Xlife is by way of being cross-platform, since there's a solid Windows port available. Unlike Golly, Xlife provides a pure GUI-based method of registering large patterns in terms of (translated, rotated, reflected, rephased) subpatterns... seems somewhat noteworthy, though I don't know for sure that anyone but me has actually _used_ that functionality since about 1995 -- the learning curve is fairly steep!
  • If Xlife does make the grade, David Bell's much more powerful Life program deserves a mention, too -- macro/command file capabilities, sticky "marks" for subpatterns, multiple undo/redo, cell history ("tracks") like in MCell, and lots of other good stuff. Still don't know this program as well as I should, so I can't say much more.
Dave Greene 07:56, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I wish Dave Greene's comments had been listened to. The newly revised Life program list ordering is useful only to a Game-of-Life-fanatic (his term). Hensel's Java applet absolutely deserves to be first on the list for the very reasons Greene stated. Rearranging the list would better serve the interests of casual wikipedia users.

Limiting the size of the list to six is needlessly arbitrary. If the list is somewhat properly ordered by relevence to the wikipedia user its size is not so important. Arbitrarily limiting the size of the list removes an element of intelligent choice from the casual wikipedia user.

Half of the entries in the revised external links section don't deserve to be there while the link to the far worthier Callahan's page link has been removed. Restoring the link to Callahan's page and placing it first would better serve the interests of casual wikipedia users.

The recent changes went too far - they deleted too many links. The best interests of the casual wikipedia user have not been served. 66.42.71.38 00:30, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Y halo thar George Maydwell. Here and in your email you are arguing in the wrong direction — the precise number six is not important, and your emailed complaints that these edits have reduced the web traffic to your site are also not convincing that the reduced traffic is a problem. Based on the half-dozen Google hits I found to "Modern Cellular Automata Author", widespread use will not fly as a reason for your software to be considered notable, either. A better reason (and the one I'll be using to restore the link to your software) is that it can be used to embed CA applets into users' web pages, a very useful functionality that the other programs lack. As for Paul's collection, can you give me a reason why (1) it is significantly more notable than Silver's, Hickerson's, Bell's, Niemiec's, or Koenig's collections, or the collections included withing most of the programs listed, and (2) this page should serve as a directory for such collections? —David Eppstein 01:23, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
A link to the author's easy to use color pattern collection might be more relevant to this article's topic. Web referrals, if true, indicate that at least some casual wikipedia users find a given link to be of interest and potential use (Dave Greene's "...links that a non-Game-of-Life-fanatic might actually follow"). 66.42.71.48 22:30, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
comp.theory.cell-automata contains additional specific discussion.66.42.71.105 14:27, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
It's been a year and a half since I stopped following that one, but does it really have much discussion on Life specifically, as opposed to cellular automata more generally? —David Eppstein 17:20, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

The too many Life program links problem has apparently been mostly solved for now. One remaining issue is the application of the following wikipedia guideline: "... you should give your reader a good summary of the site's contents, and the reasons why this specific website is relevant ...". I opine that including the Life program author names in external program descriptions is by and large not relevant to wikipedia users of the article. If the names were relevant they would appear in the article's text. I propose removal of the names.66.42.71.37 15:56, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Ok with me. —David Eppstein 17:26, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Objects

I hope this isn't in the wrong place...

Does anyone of patterns such as these:

  • Impassable Wall - A wall is constructed and infinitely extended in both directions. A defined width of the wall is given. If something is created on one side of the wall (outside the width of the wall), it will never be able to reach the other side. i.e. We have glider eaters but such a wall is an everything-eater.
  • Life in a Life - A unit is created and copied infinitely in a grid with equal spacing which is meant to interact with other units of the same kind in the same way that individual cells interact (23survive3birth145678die). The unit consists of three more or less distinct parts:
    • Control center - identifies the state (on or off) of the unit and determines whether to stay alive, become dead, become alive, or stay dead.
    • Out messengers - tells the other units' in messengers what the state of the unit is (via gliders?)
    • In messengers - receives information from other units' out messengers and tells the control center the state of the surrounding units. 208.124.23.83 00:16, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
It was misplaced at the top of the talk page, but I moved it to the bottom. I don't believe that any impassable wall is known in Life although they can exist in other rules. As for what you call "life in a life", it's often called a "unit cell". See here for an example. If you run Golly, there is a better unit cell (looks like a light or dark square when viewed at high zooms) used in a few of its example patterns, the ones with "META" in their names under "Hashing Examples". —David Eppstein 01:38, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
In Conway's Life the closest known approach to an impassable wall, discussed in this weblog entry, stops only 4/9ths of the gliders shot at it; gliders on the other paths, or the great majority of spaceships on the great majority of paths, will destroy it very quickly.
It seems hard to prove definitively that there's no such thing as an impassable wall in B3/S23 Life -- but I'd definitely prefer to figure out how to break through a given defensive wall, rather than figuring out how to build one! -- Dave Greene 03:08, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, although the unit cell linked to is not quite what I had imagined (it is not easy to determine whether the cell is alive or not, also the number of generations that represent one generations is extremely high). It's quite interesting to think about such things. Leon math 01:44, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
The more recent "metapixel" patterns at least fix the "not easy to determine" problem, though unless you have a hashlife-based program such as Golly they are still very slow to run. In the meantime I also found this web link by Dvgrn describing them. (Dave, you could have mentioned this when you posted above!) —David Eppstein 05:16, 29 January 2007 (UTC)


This is my first 3-period space ship:

.....1..........

.111.111........

1......11.......

.11...1..1...1..

...........1111.

...........1...1

.........1..1.1.

..........1.....

Deo Favente (talk) 00:54, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

That's one of the classic c/3 ships -- top spaceship on the left in Golly's Spaceships/c3-orthogonal.rle, for example. Did you find it with an existing search program, or write your own? Dave Greene (talk) 13:57, 28 February 2008 (UTC)


The "life in a life" you ask for is known as "unit cell" and a simulation can be found at [1] 129.241.246.37 (talk) 13:04, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Thoughts regarding origins and history

Parts of "origins" could perhaps be reworked into a new section "history" by someone more expert and a better writer than myself. My recollection is that Gardner's article was followed in short order by the availability of Life programs on time share dialup systems. A history section would encompass Gardner's article, early time share systems, LIFELINE, early microcomputer implementions, and pattern hunting through the ages up to what experts consider today's current state of the art. A well written history section would provide names, including the names of those who wrote the earliest widely available Life programs.66.42.71.37 00:16, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

This site and its wikipedia link apparently exist primarily to sell copies of the "Fi*e Cellular Automata" software. From the site: "Price and ordering: A single-user license for Fi*e Cellular Automata costs US$16.00, €12.00 or £8.00 (excluding any sales tax).". According to my reading of the wikipedia guidelines the site should NOT be linked to. I also question the relevance of this site to GOL. If q-life is so relevant to the article then why cannot a different NON-COMMERCIAL reference be found and used instead?

Why should wikipedia guidelines against commercial sites be overlooked in this one case? The link has been deleted and reinstated once. Reason was given for the link's removal, but no reason was given for its reinstatement. This is unacceptable.66.42.71.84 21:24, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Here is a quote from the opening sentence of a press release about the company [[2]]: "... (in business since mid-1997) exists primarily to market the software developed by ...".

Wikipedia article search for the site[[3]] currently returns 55 articles. 66.42.71.95 03:23, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I repeated your removal of the link from here, and took down a few of the ones from the WP search. There's plenty more left there for others to remove, though. —David Eppstein 05:03, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
Wondered about that link in passing, but left it in because it described how to do the weighting to get Conway's-Life behavior out of q-Life (and I was doing enough for one edit already!). The q-Life rule system seems fairly arbitrary and implementation-specific -- at least, I haven't seen that exact generalization elsewhere in CA literature. Without the link, the paragraph was too vague to be useful, so I rebuilt it with examples from MCell instead. -- Dave Greene 12:12, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
A very similar link was embedded in the text of the Cellular Automaton article. The MCell examples are welcomed. Corresponding GIF files would be cool. Examples of q > 10 state Life exist. 66.42.71.57 19:13, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

"Variation for two players" section

I just reflexively cleaned up the new two-player-Life section, but now that I'm mostly done, I strongly suspect that the quoted rules aren't particularly encyclopedic. I can find references to two-player "Life" games -- e.g., [P2Life] is mentioned in [several] [places], and there are other implementations [here] and [there] and [everywhere] -- but it looks as if they're significantly different from the rules given here.

The closest I can come is the description of ['war of life'], in which the generation rules are similar (and I like the idea of turning "Conway's Crank" to run the pattern one generation) but there you're only allowed to move one of your cells, not create one of yours and delete one of your opponent's. Is there any documentation of this new two-player variant actually being played, or is it a new invention? I wouldn't mind trying it out, but it would be nice to have an online implementation available, with at least a minor amount of popularity... -- Dave Greene 16:14, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

User Dave Greene wrote on my talk page that this variant is too marginal to be suitable to the main article about this game. So what about creating a stub article "Variants of Conway's Life"? And there could be a section about the two-player variants. What do you think, please?
And the 2-player variant that I described is played by program Lifegen for Widnows 3.11. I can send it to you (with some delay), if you email me at pjel ampers centrum.cz. Pavel Jelinek 19:13, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
My general feeling is that, if it's too marginal for the main page, it's even more too marginal to have its own article, and that one shouldn't make a stub unless there is enough material to later turn it into a full article. That's why Immigration and Quadlife (both similar in principle to the game you describe) were merged into the main article after attempts were made to make separate articles for them. There is a separate article Life-like cellular automaton though it describes a class of CA rules different from what you're talking about here. —David Eppstein 19:27, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Vista compatible game of life simulator.

My new computer has Windows Vista, and Life32, which is what I normally use, doesn't work on it. Does anyone know of one that uses Windows Vista? --4.244.141.169

Have you tried Golly? --Zundark 08:36, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

http://kongregate.com/games/locos/the-game-of-life 203.164.96.238 13:35, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

No infinitely growing pattern

The statement that there are patterns that grow infinitely should be clarified as applying only to an infinite (non existant) universe, where nothing ever goes off the edge or wraps around. Since each cell can have only two states, it should be obvious to anyone that in any real life universe (with or without wrap around) the number of possible configurations is equal to 2n where n is the number of cells in the universe.

Thus in a 10x10 universe the number of possible configurations is equal to 2100. Granted, the number is quite large even for a small universe, but it is actually a lot smaller when you consider that many of those configurations will be the same pattern at a different location.

To sum it up, an infinitely growing pattern can exist only in an infinite universe. In a finite universe every pattern will either die, reach equalibrium or lapse into a repeating pattern with a finite number of steps (less than 2n ).

The comparison of an infinite (non emulatable) universe to a finite universe with wrap around gets into some of the same issues as Euclidean geometry vs non-Euclidean geometry. Just as the notion of a paralell lines never meeting and all convergent lines eventually meeting requires an infinite, non curving universe , so the notion of an infinitely growing life pattern requires an infinite, noncurving universe. Johnelson (talk) 02:36, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

But, mathematically (and if we're not speaking mathematically we should eschew words such as infinite) Life is generally defined on an infinite universe. Many implementations wrap; many others don't (the one I usually use automatically expands the field to fit a growing pattern, and slows to a crawl when the pattern gets too big rather than providing it with an edge to fall off or to wrap around), but we should distinguish what an implementation does from the mathematical definition of the system. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:02, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

The article states that Conway used his work on Leech's problem when he developed Life, but no mention is made of how it relates to the game. Biographies such as [4] make no mention of a link and [5] only hint that his success with the Leech problem gave him confidence to pursue whatever he liked, inlcuding games. EverGreg (talk) 13:53, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Science fiction novels

Google book search. I do not know if you are allowed to cite this link, but here is the multipage description of the CGoL within the Brin book, pages 231-232 even have illustrations. The Forster book asserts its connection to the CGoL within the Forster Wikipedia article. Thank you. 96.50.4.248 (talk) 20:45, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Piers Anthony's Ox is another example, if I remember correctly. But are there any reliable third-party sources that discuss the phenomenon of cellular automata in fiction, or are we forced to do our own original research on the subject? —David Eppstein (talk) 21:03, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Breeder image?

Do we really need an image on this page that is 750kB in size? It's a nice animated graphic, but it seems silly to me that it's placed so prominently in the article. It is already located on the article for breeders, and it makes a lot more sense there.

Gosper glider gun with grid
Gosper glider gun with grid

Also, I don't want to edit the Gosper glider gun image without discussing it first since it's a pretty popular picture around here I see, but what would people think of changing it to the one displayed to the right that I uploaded? My reasoning is that the standard used elsewhere on the page seems to be to use black cells, white background, and a light gray grid. Thoughts? JokeySmurf (talk) 22:48, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

The glider gun image looks better with the grid, but it doesn't show the gliders that go out and it's harder to resize --George (talk) 01:30, 16 March 2009 (UTC)


Hexagonal animated gif

Maybe I don't understand this, but it seems to me that the oscillator in the bottom left corner of this image is period-4, not period-3? 87.194.130.140 (talk) 08:09, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

It looks like you're right. I've made the change. JokeySmurf (talk) 16:00, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

The new animated gifs

Aren't the new animated gifs a bit of overkill? I mean we have over 5Mb of GIFs on the page now, and unless you're already familiar with the Game of Life, I don't see most of them meaning much of anything to you (and some of them, such as the racetrack, I don't think are "important" enough to warrant the space they've been given). Also, there are now *two* huge animated gifs of Gosper's original breeder on the page. Wouldn't it be more instructive to have one image of a complex pattern (such as the breeder) to show that such complicated patterns have been constructed, but save the rest of the images for smaller, easier-to-grasp images like oscillators, spaceships, and maybe a simple puffer? JokeySmurf (talk) 12:19, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, 5Mb of animation is way beyond the "static image with a link to the animation is preferred unless the animation has a very small file size" of image use policy. Smaller, static versions of the same structures would be fine - I think any random frame of the large images would give a reasonable representation of what that pattern was doing.
Given that 5Mb of animation is very bad news for a minority of users (my elderly laptop was groaning a bit when rendering them), I've reverted to the previous version of the article for now. (I've also taken out the pre-existing File:Colour coded racetrack.gif, which was 1.3Mb. Again, a static frame of this with an explanation and a link to the animation would suffice.) --McGeddon (talk) 16:41, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
So now we have a featured image linked to nowhere? That racetrack image has been there for weeks now and nobody complained. --Simpsons contributor (talk) 17:36, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
It's a great piece of work, but image usage policy suggests that we should have a static frame that links to the full version, rather than a very large (1.8Mb!) animation in the body of the article. I only took the images out temporarily, as some Wikipedia users may have serious trouble rendering 5Mb of animation; I'd hope they could all be re-added as static versions. --McGeddon (talk) 17:55, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Should I move those other animations to Wikimedia Commons so they don't go to waste? How long does it take to open on your browser? I have a £14 Virgin broadband package (one of the cheapest) and the page opens very quickly even with the large images. I thought bandwidth wouldn't be too much of a problem today. --Simpsons contributor (talk) 19:11, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm with McGeddon. The animations are amazing. Don't get me wrong. I can, however see the problem with bandwidth. A click-to-animate option seems the best idea, because non-math people probably don't care what the animated version looks like. Is there an existing template to display a non-animated GIF that, when clicked, loads the animation? Could one be created? I don't know. My CSS and PHP are not so good. Also, you seem to be from Europe. Here in the US, we have slower internet than you do. I have no idea why. Theusernameiwantedisalreadyinuse (talk) 02:40, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
It froze my browser for about a minute; this was on a fairly elderly laptop that had a few other programs open. It wasn't a bandwidth issue, just a rendering one.
It definitely wouldn't hurt to put the images on Commons. I'm not sure if there's an easy way to link a static image to an animated version; even if there is, though, we should probably be helping the reader out by saying "see also: this animated version" in the caption (otherwise they won't know that the animated version is there). --McGeddon (talk) 09:33, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
The size and where they're hosted isn't the problem here. The problem is overuse of images because they look cool, which isn't the purpose of including images in articles. There is no reason to directly link all the images here when most of them provide little additional encyclopedic value over that of the first couple. Punt them to Commons and put a sisterlink in. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:50, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
What looks “cool” is subjective, I just thought those images complemented the section that spoke of dirty puffers, clean puffers (rakes) and breeders/lobsters rather well. It simply never occurred to me that large images (a few megabytes) would be a major problem. --Simpsons contributor (talk) 19:44, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
An anonymous IP has just removed the image with an edit summary of "stopped animation from crashing browser", after you added it back a few weeks ago. Do you think it can work as a static, annotated frame instead? --McGeddon (talk) 22:12, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
I noticed the article on Platonic solids has non-animated pictures that link to animated ones rather well. I'd make a template for it, but I have no idea how. That method seems to be the best way to use animations without animation Theusernameiwantedisalreadyinuse (talk) 09:55, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
The animation didn't crash my browser, so the most likely explanation is that there is something wrong with the computer of the link remover. They should get their machine fixed instead of hacking content out of wikipedia without at least giving a more detailed description of whatever testing they might have done. Unless the animation can be shown to consistently crash multiple browsers on multiple machines I think it should be restored.67.181.2.212 (talk) 02:07, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
My elderly laptop freezes for a while when rendering a 1.3Mb inline gif, and anyone on a slow Internet connection is going to struggle to see the image in full. A 1.3Mb animation is flat-out against image use policy, for this and other reasons - it's extremely easy to replace it with a single frame. I'll sort something out over the next few days, if nobody else gets there first. --McGeddon (talk) 09:33, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Entertainment Games based on Conway's Game

Is this too obscure?

Populous II (1991) included the rules from Conway's Game of Life in governing the behavior of one particular divine power (deadly fungus). anecdote from personal memory; I don't know of any way to academically verify this besides booting the game up and giving it a shot! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.236.32.185 (talk) 03:31, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Is this important enough that some third party has published a reliable source concerning the relation between P2 and Life? If not, probably best not to include it per WP:NOR and WP:TRIVIA. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:19, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

L.A.2

I thoroughly recommend L.A.2, a flash shmup game by Kenta Cho, wherein you avoid growths and fire gliders... Huzzah! Marvelous implementation. -- Quiddity (talk) 06:56, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Where "marvelous" apparently means "display works but controls inoperative". I tried four different browsers; no luck getting it do anything in any of them. In any case, does this have anything to do with improving our encyclopedia article? —David Eppstein (talk) 07:27, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
See this youtube video of the game in play. (I won't attempt to guess why you're having compatibility issues. FWIW, I'm using Ubuntu, and it works in opera and firefox).
For our article, there are potential sources here: a brief explanation by Nick Montfort, and a longer review at Jay Is Games. Do one or both of those seem reasonable, to use as sources for a 1-sentence explanation of this game, in the "Entertainment based upon ..." section of this article?
It's the most fun I've had with CGoL, since finding Golly many years ago. Hence my enthusiasm. (There are so many bad implementations out there...) -- Quiddity (talk) 17:39, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

subsections

I think the section "Examples of patterns" should be broken into subsections. For instance, the still-lifes and oscillators, glider guns, self-replicating, etc. Bubba73 (You talkin' to me?), 22:01, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

self-replicating pattern

A friend tells me of a self-replicating pattern published in New Scientist, June 19, 2010. It is called Gemini and duplicates itself in 34 million generations. That needs to be in the article. Bubba73 (You talkin' to me?), 21:36, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

[Link] to article. Bubba73 (You talkin' to me?), 21:41, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
Whoops, it is in there. Bubba73 (You talkin' to me?), 21:42, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
It's been debated as to whether it is actually a self-replicator or not. I made the mistake of calling it a self-replicator in the original LifeNews article, although some definitions of self-replication exclude it. It is more accurately a self-constructor, as it only produces one copy of itself and does not return to its initial state. Calcyman (talk) 18:39, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
So it makes only that one copy, and no more? Bubba73 (You talkin' to me?), 04:55, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
It makes one copy and subsequently self-destructs, allowing that replicant to continue the process. In effect, it is translating itself by (5120,1024) every 34 million generations. Calcyman (talk) 19:20, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
Is there a source we could cite for this? Would it be possible to change the set of instructions on the tape so that it didn't self-distruct? --Salix (talk): 06:52, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
Then clearly it is not quite there yet. The literature has long described the idea of following a tape of instructions to construct its own like, then copy the instruction tape, insert it into its new self, and then turn it on. I could see the problems of doing it more than once, or again, but the challenges of doing that are challenges that have already been encompassed by the self duplication. 99.25.112.119 (talk) 06:03, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

fyi

I once wrote an accelerated version of "Life" (the adjacency algorithm) that ran much faster than either array or matrix versions (owing to its sparseness). I don't have the code... but it wasn't terribly hard. I used a linked list of live cells that was traversed/managed, rather than traversing the whole game array - which is normally mostly dead. Anyone interested in the algorithm might be interested in trying that out. The nice thing was, you can make the life grid extremely large... without sacrificing performance (i ran with 1 cell per pixel at 1024/768 .... and it was like a blur) 96.49.206.41 (talk) 07:04, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Does this have something to do with improving the content of our article? In any case, Hashlife is even faster than that. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:17, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Tumbler

I found an oscillator not featured on the article , known as the tumbler. http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/2241/tumbler.jpg

Sorry I don't have an animation.

Dantegao (talk) 01:32, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

There are many thousands of known oscillators; we can't hope to cover them all, only to give a flavor of what is known. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:19, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Possible correction to the Gosper Glider Gun?

I read the original SA articles back in 1972, and vaguely remember that the glider gun was itself created by a large number of gliders, rather than the static form shown here. This was very memorable to me because at the time (and even now) I saw this as rather "biological": working together in close cooperation, "drone" or "worker" gliders can create a "Queen" glider. Old_Wombat (talk) 12:18, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

UTM

I'm very interested in Andrew J. Wade's "Gemini" Turing-complete pattern. BOTH of the links citing this are down. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mcandre (talk • contribs) 06:18, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

You seem to be confusing two patterns. Andrew's "Gemini" is not Turing-complete (it's not a computer); instead, it is a self-replicating pattern. There are many UTM-equivalent patterns in Life, including Paul Rendell's UTM, Paul Chapman's URM, and my UCC. Calcyman (talk) 17:15, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Consumer implementations

In most consumer implementation, there's a bounce-off wall. When a LWSS hits it, it forms a glider that, in turn, becomes a block when hitting the other wall. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yura87 (talk • contribs) 10:55, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't remember seeing that in any GoL implementations I've used. Could be the case in versions for older computers that would run out of memory, but I doubt anyone would make a bounce-off wall simply because that would ruin many interesting patterns. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.68.15.66 (talk) 06:50, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Inaccurate information

This article appears to use information given in Poundstone's The Recursive Universe, confirmed by Conway to be false: 

The major case is that according to Poundstone I
"thought" populations would stay bounded (or something roughly
equivalent), which since the whole point of "life" was to find a
universal CA, was nonsense. [In my off moments I might have been
scared by the horrible possibility that populations MIGHT just
turn out to be bounded, but I certainly never thought they WOULD be,
and I can't even remember whether there were any such off moments!]

I have since amended the article to reflect what Conway actually conjectured, not what Poundstone claimed he conjectured. Calcyman (talk) 10:08, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

I've just found that a link to XLife is rather too old. It points to v3.5 of this program. This old version can't be compliled directly without manual edition with modern gcc. Other links are too numerous and empty in many cases. They also missed some variants of Xlife. So there are links to newer versions: http://wwwhomes.uni-bielefeld.de/achim/xlife-3.6.tar.gz (v3.6), http://openports.se/games/xlife (v5.3), http://packages.debian.org/lenny/xlife (v5.0.8), http://litwr2.atspace.eu/xlife.php (v6.0). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.143.43.217 (talk) 08:44, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

First Life program

The claim "The first-ever Life program was written by John Francis (an undergraduate student at Cambridge) on an IBM 360..." cannot be correct, because I remember watching Conway watching what I believe was the first program, with a 40x40 (or thereabouts) display running on the PDP-7. This was in early 1971, before the "IBM 360" (actually 370/165) arrived. (I cannot remember who wrote it, though.) Imaginatorium (talk) 16:46, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

metapixels

I thik someone should write about metapixels, a thing that probably makes the universitality of life more obvious to many. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.61.9.75 (talk) 15:15, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

bad cite

Sitation number 20, "blockswitch", is getting redirected to something about appletarts. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.156.99.58 (talk) 18:03, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Not for me. Maybe you have a virus, or maybe it was an intermittent problem. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:28, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
That LifeWiki page had been vandalised (along with many others), but has since been fixed. --Zundark (talk) 08:01, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Please Put a Stop to JohnBlackburne's Vandalization of My Edits

This help request has been answered. If you need more help, please place a new {{help me}} request on this page followed by your questions, or contact the responding user(s) directly on their user talk page.

I have seen some mention of a dispute resolution process at Wikipedia and will shortly hunt it down so I can avail myself of it.

This is MichaelCrawford. I am unable to reset my password, so I've been posting without logging in. This seems to have set off swarms of SpamBots on Search-and-Destroy Missions to censor my latest contributions to Wikipedia.

If you look through the history of this TALK PAGE you will find that I have been up all night long struggling quite desperately to discuss my novel and quite significantly advanced Algorithm for a large class of Cellular Automata, of which Conway's Game of Life is a specific example.

I call the Algorithm "Warp Life" after the Star Trek Warp Drive, because it is so dramatically faster than other implementations I have seen from other developers. My specific implementation of the Warp Life Algorithm runs on iOS devices - the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch - and is also called Warp Life.

It is important to understand that no Algorithm can be considered valid, or worthy of serious consideration, until it has been demonstrated to be correct: that it produces the correct output that corresponds to a given input, that it doesn't have logic flaws that get it stuck and cause it to halt, that for every possible input, the correctly corresponding output is produced in a finite time - this last is known as "The Halting Problem".

JohnBlackburne claims that because he himself has written a Conway's Life implementation, that he all by himself has the authority to judge whether my own Algorithm Warp Life is notable or not.

Two of us can play that same game: I've been into Conway's Life quite steadily since 1972. Never in my entire life have I ever heard any mention of anyone named "John Blackburne" having anything whatsoever to do with Conway's Game of Life. Can I not then assert that he himself is not in any way notable in the Conway's Life community, and therefore not of authority to determine what may fall on its Wikipedia Talk Page?

He points out in his own User Talk page that I need to cite authoritative sources to discuss Warp Life in the article. That's quite ingenuous, as never at any time during this dispute have I ever attempting to edit the article itself in any way. I've been struggling - desperately, for, let's see... G-D DAMMIT! THIRTEEN HOURS! to solicit *discussion* with the other Conway's Game of Life Article Editors about the results of my research.

If you look at the history of my edits, or undo JohnBlackburne's reversions of them, you will see that I do give a broad overview of my Algorithm as it is implemented so far. There is a lot more to it, that is discussed in quite a lot of detail elsewhere on the web. What I was hoping to get out of posting it would be discussions with others who were familiar with other implementations of Life, that would enable me to express what is truly unique and new about the Warp Life Algorithm, and only THEN add that to the article.

Now I did post a call for Beta Testers for Warp Life. JohnBlackburne asserts that it would have been acceptable for me to solicit reviewers for a written paper on the Algorithm, but not for Beta Testers.

But how is anyone at all to know that the Algorithm is designed correctly, if a functional implementation of that Algorithm is not tested? Some Algorithms such as QuickSort are simple enough that one can prove through logical reasoning alone that the algorithms are correct. But Warp Life is quite complex; it is simply not possible to prove it correct through symbolic methods alone.

I commenced my study of Conway's Life in 1972. My first but failed attempt at implementing it in software was in 1983. In 1996 I wrote what I have good reason to believe was the fastest code then available for the PowerPC Macintosh. That inspired me to sponsor a contest to see who could do better than I, with a certain German fellow being the clear winner with some tightly hand-optimized PowerPC Assembly code.

I took up Warp Life in December 2009, and have devoted myself to it most of the time since. Thus I've been up four thirteen hours now, struggling to do nothing more than to discuss two and a half years of research results, that I will ultimately post as a few paragraphs in the Article itself, but every time I attempt to do so, JohnBlackburne vandalizes my edits.

I have seen that there is some manner of formal dispute resolution procedure. I'll go look for it right now. But I wanted to post this here at first so that those who look through the history will find me protesting JohnBlackburne's appalling censorship.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.131.200.103 (talk • contribs) 20:58, 18 June 2012‎

If you have an email address associated with your account then you can get your password reset, see Wikipedia:Passwords#How do I recover a password I have forgotten?. Otherwise you can just create a new username and add a link to your old username.--Salix (talk): 07:15, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
Salix, thanks for your help. I expect that I can actually get my original email account back. It's my own domain; my original problem was that that domain had expired but I've been totally busted and so did not have the cash to renew its registration. I have since renewed it, but that domain's original hosting service fell over, with the result that my domain no longer has an SMTP server. That's a problem I know how to solve, but I haven't actually done so yet because I have been very focussed on fixing up Dulcinea's corporate website in hopes of attracting paying customers. My webmaster work is starting to wind down now, so sometime in the next few days, I'll find an SMTP server, set up my original Wikipedia email address, then request a password reset link. - MichaelCrawford 50.131.200.103 (talk) 13:42, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
Looking at your deleted comment [6]. I would say WarpLife is too new for wikipedia. The requirement for verified sources are strict see WP:RS and WP:V, mailing list discussions don't generally meet those requirements. First you will need to release the software, then get some independent reviews, if it does prove to be significantly faster than other algorithms it will gain the notability to be included here. Your at least a year away.--Salix (talk): 07:44, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
Salix, just last night I elucidated some of the basic design principles behind Warp Life in my new essay HOWTO Write Code That Doesn't Suck. Note that the basic insights required to have invented the Warp Life Algorithm are the result of being educated as a Physicist rather than a Computer Scientist. While without a doubt anyone at all who tries out my initial iOS product will regard my new Algorithm as notable enough for Wikipedia coverage, of far more significance is that the basic research that went into my code's development also yielded the insight I required to commence work on HOWTO Write Software That Uses Less Electric Power.
While conserving energy extends the life of mobile device batteries, of far more significance is that, were my methods for saving power though more-efficient code widely practiced, all the world's data centers put together - Google, the Apple iTunes Store, Facebook MySpace, all the video and music streaming services, all the shared hosting services that The Wayback Machine reports to total 420,000,000 domains, many of which have lots of pages, all the government servers - not just web servers, but most kinds of servers - as well as all The Websites of Ill Repute will save hundreds of gigawatts of power. Thus the possibility exists that my research into Warp Life will contribute in a positive way to solving Global Warming, as well as making armed conflict over our limited resources far less of a problem. - MichaelCrawford 50.131.200.103 (talk) 13:42, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Wrong Diehard

The Diehard pattern on this page is the wrong one. The correct one is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methuselah_(cellular_automaton) {{subst:|unsigned64.121.105.140}}

Are you sure about that? The one on this page is one step back from the one on the Methusalah page, so it dies in 130 steps while the other one takes only 129. In addition the one on the Methusalah page doesn't animate (because it has been resized to a different size than the size at which it animates) so it just ends up looking like a few tiny colored dots in a big grid. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:56, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Reminder about the use of pedantic language in wikipedia articles.

From WP:NOTTEXTBOOK

"8. Academic language. Texts should be written for everyday readers, not for academics."

172.12.225.38 (talk) 02:17, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Should this cat be in the See also list?

Category:Cellular automata in popular culture

? Govvy (talk) 15:29, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Disambiguation

I landed on this article when using a web search engine to look for information on "The Game of Life." However, I was not looking for "Conway's Game of Life."

Disambiguation links are not only intended for primary consumers of an article who might get confused as to whether the presented information relates to one topic, or a different one with a similar name.

Disambiguation links are also intended to aid users who have no interest in the present topic, but are looking for a different topic with a similar name, and have arrived at a page by mistake.

Please let the disambiguation link stand. Vvevo (talk) 13:17, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

It was the case that the title wasn't ambiguous: Game of life and Game of Life redirected elsewhere and the "Conway's" in this title disambiguated it. But I agree that this is the primary topic; not only from the search engine results but from the depth of the articles and common usage – the other articles are obscure and/or far more trivial. I've updated the redirects therefore to point to this article, and added a hatnote to match.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 13:54, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Dwarf Fortress

Hello. I can't wiki well, but I thought this would be interesting. A Dwarf Fortress player has built a Game of Life sim inside Dwarf Fortress (using mechanical logic systems) http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=69307.0 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.188.236.181 (talk) 10:35, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

It's trivia. Game of Life is often ported to new and novel systems; it's both trivial (so easy) but potentially massively parallel (so less easy depending on the platform) which often makes it an interesting challenge. I myself did a Flash shader implementation of it [7]. But neither that nor a Dwarf Fortress version is particularly interesting or notable. Or to put it another way: if all such examples were included it would massively bloat the article and make it far less useful and manageable.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 11:04, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Use of cellular automaton in other computer games.

I am curious, you call it trivia, but how comes there is nothing in the article describing the use of Life in other games and it's influences on popular culture? Other programmers have added Life as an Easter Egg in their games, and Chuck Sommerville who developed games for the Atari said they used Life to test the processing power of the Atari Lynx. Govvy (talk) 11:57, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Usually it's a trivial use of the Game of Life: it's like e.g. if you pick any piece of popular music you'll find it's used in films, TV programs, theatre, even games. But these are not usually worth mentioning in the song's article unless there's a significance to it – that the song was written for the film for example. So unless it has some significance for the Game of Life, as has been noted in reliable sources, it's not worth including.
If you have some references on its impact on popular culture then they would be worth perhaps including. But it's not really the sort of program that has a popular impact. It doesn't do anything that interesting or impressive, and is mostly of interest as a programming exercise.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 12:14, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
I think the problem will be references, it's hard finding them, being said, I am sure if someone tried it could be done. Govvy (talk) 12:29, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Conway's negative opinion of the GoL later in life?

Last year I attended a conference at which John Conway was the keynote speaker. He expressed a sort of dismay- almost regret - of his creation of the Game of Life. He spent 5 minutes at the beginning of a one hour talk discussing its non-importance, I was quite taken aback - having found his early work quite critical in the development of methods for complex systems analysis. Presumably me hearing him say it would be original research (I'm not 100% clear on Wikipedia policy on that one?), but if I can find any media of him on this topic, would it be worth at least a mention?

I think the stark contrast between his current perspective compared to general consensus, with regard to his own work, is something to be of note. Especially considering, "[t]he game made Conway instantly famous, [and] it also opened up a whole new field of mathematical research, the field of cellular automata...". I think the development of agent-based modelling as a whole, and the benefits it is bringing to biomedicine and other fields, owes a lot to what he appears to regard as a trivial game.

During his presentation, he dismissed the one person who attempted to bring up his Game of Life, and instead spoke mostly about quantum entanglement and rather esoteric physics. This was at an artificial life/simulation conference, so I think much of the audience was confused or at least taken a back. I thought it was very interesting, if not particularly relevant. It may well be he feels this overshadows his other important works and he wants to highlight them? (He was also old school, first time in years I've seen someone use an overhead projector and transparent film) 81.159.232.89 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 01:23, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Pentagonal Tilings

are here some links to works about pentagonal tilings -based games? (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagonal_tiling ) --79.26.60.34 (talk) 22:23, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Yes, Carter Bays has investigated cellular automata on the Cairo pentagonal tiling. See Bays, Carter (2009), "Cellular Automata in Triangular, Pentagonal and Hexagonal Tessellations", Encyclopedia of Complexity and Systems Science, Springer, pp. 892–900, doi:10.1007/978-0-387-30440-3_58. However, this article would be the wrong place to include this information; if it goes anywhere it should be in the more general cellular automaton article. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:35, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

UK vs US spelling

I just undid a change by 69.172.152.87 (talk · contribs) that changed "neighbor" to "neighbour", one of the classic US-vs-UK spelling differences, because per WP:RETAIN we should not be changing the spelling in this way without getting consensus on talk. But then I checked, and discovered that we have 15 instances of "neighbour" (or "neighbourhood") and 3 of "neighbor" (or "neighborhood"). We also have two "colour"s and no "color"s. So it seems the preponderance of the spelling is UK-based. Should we switch to use UK spelling more consistently? Or is there some reason for using US spelling despite the fact that it would be a bigger change? Does Conway being English or working in the US make a difference, or is this one of those topics that has no strong affiliation with one side or the other? I don't have a strong opinion myself but I definitely think we should use one or the other consistently rather than mixing it up in the middle of an article. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:53, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

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The Powder Toy

The program known as The Powder Toy is a game which, along with hosting many digitally emulated electronic and other creations, also hosts Conway's Game of Life along with many of it's variations.

The Powder Toy can run many life types simultaneously (to varying degrees of survivability for each life type)

Jc 3833 (talk) 14:59, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

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Language of the article

The creator of the Game of Life is British according to the lead. Therefore, should this article not be written in British English as per MOS:TIES? I do not know exactly if that applies here because perhaps it cannot be called "strong national ties", but it remains that the article is speaking about something created by a person from Britain. Discuss. DesertPipeline (talk) 20:42, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

See Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Can we clarify what does and does not constitute 'strong national ties'? for a recent discussion of this issue. The sense I get from the discussion there is that the ties need to be very direct for national ties to override the policy of not gratuitously changing the established style of an article. In this case, you could equally well write that the Game of Life was first publicly described in Scientific American, therefore it should use American English. I think, to avoid pointless arguments of this form, retaining the existing style is a better choice. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:56, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

Far-reaching

Dennett draws far-reaching philosophical conclusions from Conway's Game of Life. Many cellular automata exist. Conway chose his rules on whim, with a view to producing interesting results. Dennett could be accused of cherry-picking. The article says "Conway chose his rules carefully". The four criteria were chosen by Conway. The supposedly absent designer is called Conway. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C0:FCF6:4801:F013:A013:C16C:8D15 (talk) 08:09, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

Conway chose the infinite size of the board. He chose the number of dimensions, two. He chose the number of colours, two. He chose the eight neighbours. He chose the four transitions.
He chose the squares.
Conway's four rules are vague. It is a matter of opinion what is "explosive growth", for instance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C0:FCF6:4801:F013:A013:C16C:8D15 (talk) 08:27, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

graph theoretic description of game of life shapes

Is there a graph centric/(-like) description of the glider shape? Would such a shape include references to the adjacent, presumably empty spaces? Why is the state of a generation of game of life usually visually represented as a two dimensional array when a graph theoretic description might yield other, potentially better results (for the purpose of teaching and learning)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joshua.marshall.moore (talk • contribs) 03:33, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Is it Turing complete?

There does not seem to be a link for the fact it is a turing machine or turing complete. Since a Turing machine is something that can follow instructions exactly not a chaotic development like LIFE it seems like nonsense. At least it needs some link to provide evidence of this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C6:3087:9F01:8164:7D73:EDBD:77A4 (talk) 12:11, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

This is cited in the article. = paul2520 💬 15:19, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

Realization

I think this will be the way the universe ends. Let’s be honest. 108.41.105.162 (talk) 00:56, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

Uncited claim about very early Life program

NiceWikiEditor5 tagged the following material with a {{citation needed}} (thanks):

While Conway was investigating the R-pentomino, John Francis, an undergraduate student at The University of Cambridge, wrote a program (for an IBM System/360 mainframe at the nearby Institute of Theoretical Astronomy) to check Conway's results. This program showed that the configuration had not reached a stable state after 1,000 generations.

I was unable to find documentation to back this up, and it appears to have been added by Johnf.at.home [8], so I'm guessing that it's a personal recollection. We can't really include that unless it was put in print somewhere else first. If anyone can find a source that isn't just a copy of the Wikipedia article itself, that would be helpful. XOR'easter (talk) 22:56, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/LifeWiki

The page LifeWiki has been nominated for deletion. I am posting this here since redirecting that article to this one was suggested as a course of action. XOR'easter (talk) 21:11, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Zero, no, or single player game?

Aggressive undo war being waged against me over the question of Conway's categorization of Life as a "no player game" which David Epstein believes requires correction.

Let's be clear. Zero player game borders on being a non sequitur except in the sense of a demonstration of (eg) MineCraft on a computer that runs as a screen saver. No player there, just spectators.

A poker machine in a casino, according to Epstein, is also a zero player game, because no further input is required after the player enters the initial state.

This logic error is so wrong it beggars belief that people who suppose themselves to be a little bit smarter than Elvis Presley would have to think twice about how a game with a requirement for a player to enter initial conditions does not make that player a player, and that the game is therefore a one player game.

But this is the insanity Mr Epstien wants to inflict on the rest of the world. He thinks a poker machine is a zero player game because the player pulling the handle is not playing poker, and is in fact not even playing, and the poker machine really didn't need a player to start with.... (etc).....???????? Huh ???? 

Other zero player games, apart from Life, according to Epstein, are shooting an arrow at a bullseye with a bow,  throwing pebbles across a lake, riding a coin operated rocking horse and .... let's not forget the best zero player game in town.... wondering what Epstein is going to do to undo my next (this) post.

Here's my initial guess - he'll escalate it to a complaint instead of accepting reason. Initial state set. No further input from me. Let's see how playing my little zero player game goes. 46.114.104.80 (talk) 14:04, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Please refrain from personal attacks. Life is a zero-player game, it is described as such, et.c. · · · Omnissiahs hierophant (talk) 15:33, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
Agreed. "Zero-player game" makes sense, and even if it didn't, it's not Wikipedia's job to "correct" standard terminology. XOR'easter (talk) 16:23, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
To be clear, it is described as a zero-player game on the first page of its coverage in Winning Ways. There are many other sources that say the same thing, but I think they stem from that. We should follow what these sources say, not our own opinions on what these terms should mean. Also, IP editor, please spell my name correctly. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:42, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
Attacks? How about dealing with your own paranoid attacks first before you start falsely accusing me? Mr Eppstien et. al. make no apology (above) for using Wikipedia to propogate misinformation. How is my complaint about that a personal attack? Please be specific. You people make no sense and you seem to think that's ok. It's not a personal attack to state what is admitted to. Truly you bear witness against yourselves that you are the blind leading the blind. It's quite ok to call an idiot an idiot if the idiot is insulting reason. I'll leave you self admitted idiots to your aggressive irrationality, so that you may all fall together into the ditch of your own making. No need to thank me for bringing this issue to your attention. Happy hypocrisy to you all. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2003:EB:A71C:3800:3037:DAE6:64B3:FD43 (talk) 20:40, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
Do you have any sources saying Conways game of Life is something else than a zero-player game? If so, please add them. · · · Omnissiahs hierophant (talk) 22:05, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
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