✳flâneur — a map of the web's best reading

Game of Life :: Walks of Life :: Different Patterns

cs.stanford.edu · 504 words · saved by 1 readers

So what is a still-life or oscillator? A still-life is just that: a set of cells in equilibrium with each other and do not change unless they interact with other cells. In a still life every live cell most have 2 or 3 live neighbors, and every dead cell may have any number of neighbors except 3. The most common still life is the block. In it every live cell has exactly three neighbors, and every dead cell has two or fewer live neighbors. The four other most common still lifes are the beehive, the boat, the ship, and the loaf. Computer search has been used to find all still lifes with up to 20 live cells. An online catalog of these can be found here.

Game of Life :: Walks of Life :: Different Patterns After over 30 years of playing the Game of Life, it has been reduced to a game of patterns. No matter what initial random pattern you start the game with, you almost certainly will end with a small set of patterns extremely common in the world of Life. Our group could not find a random starting pattern that did not end with recognizable still lifes and oscillators. That is not to say that such never-ending patterns do not exist however. Computer programs have greatly contributed to the analysis of Life patterns, and with the aid of computers

Explore this link on the map →

related reading