Life - Kent Durvin

Life is a "game" that happens on a grid. (There are no scores, no players, but what else can you call it?) A starting pattern of dots is set up on the grid of cells. Then a few very simple rules are applied to determnine which cells of the grid will have dots in the next generation. There are only a few rules, and yet the resulting patterns are very complex, and do some very interesting things, like gliders, glider guns, hay baler, and many more. There are just 3 rules:
1. If a dot has less than 2 neighbor dots, it dies of isolation.
2. If a dot has mare than 3 neighbor dots, it dies of crowding.
3. If an empty cell has less exactly 3 neighbor dots, it gets a dot.
All of these rules determine the next generation, rather than the current generation. So a dot may be helping create a new dot and yet be dying. Image a vertical row of 3 dots. The cells on both sides of the middle dot get a new dot, while the dots on the end both die. Now you have a horizontal row of three. This happens again to make a vertical row. It is called a blinker, or an oscilator with period 2.
All of this is interesting because there is so much complex stuff going on that cannot be predicted by the simple rules.

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Friday, December 23 2005 @ 09:44 AM PST