The Game of Life is a cellular automaton created by mathematician John Conway in 1970. Despite its name, the Game of Life is not a traditional game but rather a simulation that follows a set of rules governing the behavior of cells on a grid. It is a zero-player game, meaning that its evolution is determined by its initial state, requiring no further input from the player.
The Game of Life takes place on an infinite two-dimensional grid composed of square cells, where each cell can be in one of two states: alive or dead. The game evolves in discrete time steps or generations. The state of each cell in a generation is determined by the following rules:
- Birth: A dead cell with exactly three live neighboring cells (horizontal, vertical, or diagonal) becomes alive in the next generation.
- Survival: A live cell with two or three live neighboring cells remains alive in the next generation.
- Death: A live cell with fewer than two live neighboring cells dies (underpopulation) or a live cell with more than three live neighboring cells dies (overpopulation), resulting in its death in the next generation.
These rules apply to each cell simultaneously, which means that the state of the entire grid is updated in each generation based on the current state of its cells.
To run the Game of Life, you can use a variety of programming languages or software tools. Here's a general outline of how it can be implemented:
- Create a two-dimensional grid of cells, represented by a matrix or an array. Each cell can be a boolean value (alive or dead) or any suitable data structure.
- Initialize the grid with an initial state by setting specific cells as alive or dead.
- Repeat the following steps for each generation:
- Create a copy of the current grid to store the next generation's state.
- Iterate through each cell in the current grid:
- Count the number of live neighboring cells.
- Apply the rules of birth, survival, and death to determine the state of the cell in the next generation.
- Update the corresponding cell in the new grid.
- Replace the current grid with the new grid.
- Display or output the final state of the grid or continue the simulation for a specified number of generations.
The Game of Life can be visualized by representing live cells as filled squares and dead cells as empty squares. In each generation, the grid is updated, and the pattern of live and dead cells evolves accordingly. The evolving patterns can exhibit various behaviors, such as stable formations, oscillations, or the creation of gliders and spaceships that move across the grid.
Although the basic Game of Life is played on an infinite grid, various modifications and additional features can be implemented to enhance the simulation:
- Finite Grid: Instead of an infinite grid, the simulation can be limited to a finite grid of a specified size.
- Boundary Conditions: Different boundary conditions can be applied to the grid's edges, such as wrapping around, treating the edges as dead cells, or implementing custom boundary behaviors.
- User Interaction: Users can interact with the simulation by manually toggling cells' states or drawing patterns.
- Patterns and Seeds: Specific initial patterns, such as gliders or stable formations, can be predefined or loaded from external files.
- Speed and Visualization: The speed of the simulation can be adjusted, and visualizations can be enhanced with graphical elements or colors.