Math’s ‘Game of Life’ Reveals Long-Sought Repeating Patterns
John Conway’s Game of Life, a famous cellular automaton, has been found to have periodic patterns of every possible length. The post Math’s ‘Game of Life’ Reveals Long-Sought Repeating Patterns first appeared on Quanta Magazine
In 1969, the British mathematician John Conway devised a beguilingly simple set of rules for creating complex behavior. His Game of Life, often referred to simply as Life, unfolds on an infinite square grid of cells. Each cell can be either “alive” or “dead.” The grid evolves over a series of turns (or “generations”), with the fate of each cell determined by the eight cells surrounding it.
Originally published in Quanta Abstractions.
