Conway's Game of Life, also known simply as Life, is a fascinating cellular automaton created by the British mathematician John Horton Conway in 1970. This zero-player game evolves based solely on its initial state, requiring no further input. To interact with the Game of Life, you start with an initial configuration and observe how it develops. It's noteworthy that this cellular automaton is Turing complete, which means it has the computational power to simulate a universal constructor or any other Turing machine.
The Game of Life operates according to four fundamental rules:
- Underpopulation: A living cell with fewer than two live neighbors will perish.
- Survival: A living cell with two or more living neighbors will persist.
- Overpopulation: A living cell with more than three alive neighbors will not survive.
- Reproduction: A dead cell with precisely three live neighbors will come to life.