Conway’s Game of Life

Conway’s Game of Life is a cellular automaton devised by the British mathematician John Horton Conway in 1970. The game is a zero-player game, meaning that its evolution is determined by its initial state, requiring 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, live 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. At each step in time, the following transitions occur:

• Any live cell with fewer than two live neighbors dies, as if caused by under-population.
• 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 over-population.
• Any dead cell with exactly three live neighbors becomes a live cell, as if by reproduction.

Mike’s implementation allows for either a checkerboard or random start pattern. Color schemes include a pixelated and brightened version of a photograph of stacked CDs, a brightened version of the MacAlister tartan, and random colors for cells that change. The game will restart by using the “Restart” button or if the size of this web page changes. Pressing the “Top” button will scroll the page so that the grid is fully shown on the screen. The “life bar” at the bottom of the gid indicates the current, minimum, and maximum number of living cells.