Main Page

Welcome to LifeWiki, the wiki for Conway's Game of Life. Currently contains 2,574 articles.

Guns Methuselahs Oscillators

Puffers Spaceships Still lifes

Wicks All patterns Everything else

This week's featured article A spaceship (much less commonly referred to as a glider or a fish) is a finite pattern that returns to its initial state after a number of generations (known as its period) but in a different location. The speed of a spaceship is the number of cells that the pattern moves during its period. This is expressed in terms of c (the metaphorical "speed of light") which is one cell per generation; thus, a spaceship with a period of five that moves two cells to the left during its period travels at the speed of 2c/5. Most known spaceships in Life travel either orthogonally (only horizontal or vertical displacement) or diagonally (equal horizontal and vertical displacement). However, several large Conway's Life spaceships have been engineered that travel in various oblique directions, and it is known that Life has spaceships that travel in all rational directions at arbitrarily slow speeds. Read more... Pattern collection The LifeWiki contains one of the most comprehensive catalogues of patterns available on the internet. Within it you will find: 1670 patterns (including 691 oscillators, 176 spaceships and 381 still lifes); 3758 images (608 animated and 3150 static); Over 3000 downloadable pattern files; Glider syntheses for 958 patterns. Download pattern collection 1.75 MB .zip archive containing the 1500+ RLE pattern files used on the wiki

Did you know... ... that there are over 35.4 billion distinct strict still lifes with 34 or fewer cells? ... that some infinitely-growing patterns can be constructed with as few as three gliders? ... that quadratically-growing patterns have been found with as few as 20 initial cells? ... that the blinker is the only known finite oscillator that is one cell thick? ... that Gemini, the first spaceship found in Conway's Game of Life that travels in an oblique direction, was discovered in 2010? ... that there are still lifes (such as the quad pseudo still life) that can be split into four stable islands, but not two or three? ... that no new spaceship speeds were discovered between 1970 and 1989? ... that the first stable reflector was found in October 1996, and the first fast stable reflector appeared in 2013, allowing the construction of oscillators of all periods ≥43 ticks? ... that twenty-two spaceship velocities have been constructed, excluding several infinitely adjustable families of ships? ... that there are 71 distinct ways for two gliders to collide, but it is unknown how many distinct 3-glider collisions there are?           Showing 10 items out of 84 More did you know...