Description
Cellular automaton devised by British mathematician John Horton Conway in 1970 where simple rules create complex emergent patterns, demonstrating how complexity arises from simplicity. It is a zero-player game — its evolution is determined entirely by its initial state, requiring no further input. Each cell on a grid is alive or dead; cells with 2-3 live neighbors survive, dead cells with exactly 3 neighbors become alive, all others die. From these three rules emerge gliders, oscillators, and self-replicating structures of extraordinary complexity. First published in Martin Gardner's Mathematical Games column in Scientific American. Conway passed away in 2020 from COVID-19 at age 82.
