Conway's Game of Life
Run Conway’s Game of Life with adjustable rules, load classic patterns like the glider and Gosper gun, and watch population and stability statistics as the pattern evolves.
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Four rules produce unbounded complexity
A cell lives if it has two or three living neighbours and is born if it has exactly three. That is the whole specification, and from it come oscillators, spaceships that travel, guns that emit them indefinitely, and configurations that compute. The Game of Life is Turing complete, which means anything a computer can calculate can be encoded as a starting pattern, and the only way to find out what a given pattern does is to run it. There is no shortcut, and that undecidability is the point rather than a limitation.
Almost every random start settles into the same small vocabulary
Run a random field and within a few hundred generations it stops changing except for a handful of repeating shapes: blocks, beehives, blinkers, gliders. The interesting patterns are almost all designed rather than found, because the space of starting configurations is overwhelmingly dominated by ones that die down quickly. That contrast, between a dull typical case and an unbounded exceptional one, is what makes the system worth studying.
Boundary handling changes the outcome
A finite grid has to decide what lies past the edge. Treating the outside as dead kills a glider that reaches it; wrapping the edges makes the grid a torus, so a glider returns from the opposite side and can collide with its own past. Neither is the true infinite plane, and results near the edge should be read as artefacts of that choice rather than as behaviour of the rule.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What are the rules?
A living cell with two or three living neighbours survives, and a dead cell with exactly three living neighbours becomes alive. Everything else dies or stays dead.
Is the Game of Life really Turing complete?
Yes. Logic gates, memory and a universal constructor have all been built from patterns, which means no general shortcut exists for predicting what an arbitrary pattern will do.
Why do random starts get boring?
Because the space of starting configurations is dominated by ones that settle quickly into a small vocabulary of still lifes and oscillators. The interesting patterns are designed rather than stumbled upon.
What does B3/S23 mean?
Born on three neighbours, survives on two or three. Other rulestrings give quite different worlds, and small changes to the numbers usually produce either rapid extinction or uncontrolled growth.
Does the grid edge matter?
Substantially. A dead border absorbs gliders; a wrapping border returns them to collide with their own past. Neither reproduces the infinite plane, so behaviour near the edge is an artefact of that choice.
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How to Use
Choose a pattern and press play to watch it evolve.
Disclaimer: This tool is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind. Results are for educational and utility purposes.