👾 Game: From the Simple Emerges the Complex Copy
While algorithms are simple steps, they can create many layers of complexity in order to solve huge problems.
That is the idea behind a famous computer science game called Conway’s Game Of Life.
Check out this GIF:
What are they? They’re just blocks that John Conway, a famous mathematician, called automatons. Each one is following a very simple set of steps, but as you can see, they look like little gliders or airplanes. Some may think they almost look… alive!
The algorithm that each black square is following is made from four steps:
The Steps:
- Any live cell with fewer than two live neighbors dies, as if by under population.
- Any live cell with two or three live neighbors lives on to the next generation.
- Any live cell with more than three live neighbors dies, as if by overpopulation.
- Any dead cell with three live neighbors becomes a live cell, as if by reproduction.
These rules can create a variety of stable types of motion.
Check out the game and make one yourself:
Click Here to Play Game Of Life
Once you get into the game, use the controls at the bottom to select different starting locations of the blocks.
When you click Next, the game will increment, or move forward, by one unit of time. The blocks run the set of steps above each time the game increments, which change their configuration.
If you make a cool one, upload a screenshot as a thought below!