Conway's Game of Life

A zero-player game invented by mathematician John Conway in 1970: draw a starting pattern, and everything unfolds on its own — no input, no randomness, just four rules.

Every generation, each cell counts its 8 neighbors:

• Loneliness — a live cell with fewer than 2 neighbors dies
• Survival — a live cell with 2 or 3 neighbors lives on
• Overcrowding — a live cell with more than 3 neighbors dies
• Birth — a dead cell with exactly 3 neighbors comes alive

Here the grid is the floor and every generation stacks on top of the last, so height = time: gliders trace diagonal ribbons, oscillators grow repeating columns, and dying patterns leave towers that simply… stop.

▶ Watch Veritasium explain the Game of Life