The Game of Life, also known simply as Life, is a cellular automaton by Conway's game of life. This is a zero-player game, that its evolution is determined by its initial state, with no further input. The universe of the Game of Life is an infinite, two-dimensional orthogonal grid of square cells, each of which is in one of two possible states, alive or dead, (or populated and unpopulated, respectively). Every cell interacts with its eight neighbors, which are the cells that are horizontally, vertically, or diagonally adjacent.
- Any live cell with fewer than two live neighbors dies, as if by underpopulation.
- Any live cell with two or three live neighbors lives on to the next generation.
- Any live cell with more than three live neighbors dies, as if by overpopulation.
- Any dead cell with exactly three live neighbors becomes a live cell, as if by reproduction.
These rules, which compare the behavior of the automaton to real life, can be condensed into the following:
- Any live cell with two or three live neighbors survives.
- Any dead cell with three live neighbors becomes a live cell.
- All other live cells die in the next generation. Similarly, all other dead cells stay dead.
The initial pattern constitutes the seed of the system. The first generation is created by applying the above rules simultaneously to every cell in the seed; births and deaths occur simultaneously, and the discrete moment at which this happens is sometimes called a tick. Each generation is a pure function of the preceding one. The rules continue to be applied repeatedly to create further generations.
- Click here
- Click on the grid to add squares.
- If you don't want to spend forever adding squares, click the "Random" button. It'll randomly fill the grid with squares.
- Not sure what to do? Check out this Wikipedia link for things you can build.
- If you're adding squares manually, try to avoid putting squares on their own - they'll die immediately in the first generation.