A functional self-replicator has been designed for Conway's game of life. The deceptively simple automata 'Conway's game of life' is a model system that illustrates how simple 'physics' can give rise to incredibly complex phenomena. Although a menagerie of existing patterns have been discovered/engineered that display a variety of interesting behavior (eg
here), there are also many
unanswered questions about what is possible within the simulation. Recently, life-enthusiast mscibing succeeded in designing a universal constructor pattern that is capable of building a functional copy of itself. Its execution can be viewed directly (though it takes a while!) using
Golly, a sweet, open-source app for viewing life simulations, as well as other cellular automata.
posted by armheadarmlegleg
on Jun 3, 2010 -
137 comments
Phutball (
Rules,
Java Applet), aka
Philosophers' Football or
ConwayGo is a deceptively simple 2-player game you can play on a Go board, or any rectangular grid.
(It may be simple, but finding the right move is [PDF] NP Complete.)
posted by Wolfdog
on Aug 2, 2005 -
7 comments
The Geometry Center at the University of Minnesota, while now closed, maintains an awesome website with tons of math resources.
I like
sphere eversion, i.e. turning a sphere inside out. Link is to script of video, which explains things pretty well. Here is a
clip [QT]. Also good:
notes from a class on geometry and the imagination that John Conway and some friends gave awhile back. Old but good.
posted by mai
on Mar 1, 2005 -
3 comments
Beyond Life [Java]. Mirek's Cellebration is an beautiful applet for exploring all sorts of cellular automata. Source code and standalone version also available.
posted by Wolfdog
on Jan 4, 2005 -
7 comments
You may have heard of Conway's
Game of Life, where pixels "live" or "die" based on a few simple rules about how many neighbors they have. But did you know that in the 30 years since the game was created, Life enthusiasts have (created? discovered?) an extensive
catalog of (
objects? creatures?) which interact to form some
amazing,
nifty,
grinning, sometimes
beautiful,
rube-
goldberg, occasionally even a little
scary patterns often starting from the
simplest of
building blocks? (Including a
Turing machine!) Or that a
lone pixel can exert
remarkable control over its environment? Now you can see in a few seconds in a
java applet, on your
desktop, or even on a PalmOS
handheld the outcome of simple patterns that, when first discovered, no computer could handle. A mind blowing example of the power of
emergent properties.
posted by straight
on May 29, 2002 -
22 comments
