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Conways Game of Life
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.. tags:: short, artistic, simulation



Conway’s Game of Life is a cellular automata simulation that follows simple
rules to create interesting patterns. It was invented by mathematician John
Conway in 1970 and popularized by Martin Gardner’s “Mathematical Games” column
in Scientific American. Today, it’s a favorite among programmers and computer
scientists, though it’s more an interesting visualization than a true “game.”
The two-dimensional board has a grid of “cells,” each of which follows three
simple rules:

Living cells with two or three neighbors stay alive in the next step of the simulation.
Dead cells with exactly three neighbors become alive in the next step of the
simulation.
Any other cell dies or stays dead in the next step of the simulation.

The living or dead state of the cells in the next step of the simulation
depends entirely on their current state. The cells don’t “remember” any older
states. There is a large body of research regarding the patterns that these
simple rules produce. Tragically, Professor Conway passed away of complications
from COVID-19 in April 2020. More information about Conway’s Game of Life can
be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life, and more
information about Martin Gardner at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Gardner.


.. collapse:: conways_game_of_life.py

   .. literalinclude:: conways_game_of_life.py
      :language: python
      :linenos:


https://inventwithpython.com/bigbookpython/project13.html