The Game of Life, also known simply as Life, is a cellular automaton devised by the British mathematician John Horton Conway in 1970. It is a zero-player game, meaning that its evolution is determined by its initial state, requiring no further input.
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The Game of Life is a simple simulation governed by a few rules. Despite the simplicity of this universe, it has potential for fascinating emergent behaviour. The rules are as follows:
- Any live cell with fewer than two live neighbours dies, as if by underpopulation.
- Any live cell with two or three live neighbours lives on to the next generation.
- Any live cell with more than three live neighbours dies, as if by overpopulation.
- Any dead cell with exactly three live neighbours becomes a live cell, as if by reproduction.
When you start the app, the cells will spawn randomly around the screen and life will unfold.
- Press spacebar to freeze/unfreeze time. While time is frozen you can click around the screen to spawn new cells.
- You can load some popular configurations by clicking "Patterns" in the app menu:
