Developed by mathematician John Horton Conway of the University of Cambridge in the late 1960s, the classic 'Game of Life' system uses a two-dimensional grid of cells and a few simple conditions to generate an abstract 'space' in which groups of cells create coherent persistant phenomenon. Self-propagating patterns that move across the space and iteract with others.

Game of Life

The Game operates in cycles; in each cycle, every cell in the grid changes its status by examining its neighbours.  The new state of a cell is derived according to a simple set of rules:

• The Rule of Birth
  If exactly three "live" cells are adjacent to an empty cell, the empty cell comes to life.

• The Rule of Overpopulation
  When a cell has four or more live neighbours, it dies from overcrowding.

• The Rule of Underpopulation
  Any cell with one or no neighbouring cells dies.

Or in other words:

• Any dead cell with three neighbours comes alive.
• Any live cell with anything other than two or three neighbours will die.

Life has four basic parameters: high and low values for birth and survival.  Changing those parameters, say allowing a cell to survive with three or four neighbours, creates a new system with different dynamics.

Cellular Automata

The Game of Life is perhaps the most famous implementation of a Cellular Automata (CA).  A CA being a set of cells arranged in a 2D matrix. Where each cell considers its own value and that of its immediate neighbours, to determine the cell's value in the next time step.

Despite its simplicity, Conway's system has been proven to be a 'Universal Computer', in that this system can emulate any other computation machine, be it electronic or natural.

Java Applet

The example Game of Life Java applet on this page is still in the process of being developed.