LifeWiki:Life links

This page contains a comprehensive list of links to important sites about Conway's Game of Life and related cellular automata.

Introductory Articles

• Conway's Game of Life at Wikipedia
• Conway's Game of Life at LifeWiki
• What is the Game of Life? at Math.com
• The fantastic combinations of John Conway's new solitaire game "life" - The original article describing Conway's Game of Life. Written by Martin Gardner and published in the October 1970 issue of Scientific American.

Research Papers

• Searching for Spaceships - A paper by David Eppstein describing spaceship search software and the discovery of the weekender
• The still-Life density problem and its generalizations - A paper by Noam Elkies that proves the still life conjecture that no infinite still life can have density more than 1/2

Glossaries and Encyclopediae

• The Life Lexicon by Stephen Silver (see also this version by Edwin Martin)
• A Brief Illustrated Glossary of Terms in Conway's Game of Life by Alan Hensel
• Conway’s Game of Life - An Illustrated Guide by Michael Hogg
• Treasure Trove of the Life Cellular Automaton by Eric Weisstein

Online Pattern Catalogs

• Alien life - Pattern collections focusing on Life-like cellular automata other than Conway's Game of Life itself
• Game of Life Object Catalogs at Pentadecathlon - contains most small still lifes, oscillators and spaceships
• Mark D. Niemiec's Life Page - contains lots of well-known patterns, sorted by either name, glider synthesis, size, or type

Downloadable Pattern Catalogs

• Jason Summers' pattern collections
• Pattern collections by Alan Hensel: lifebc.zip (basic collection), lifep.zip (larger collection), and lifepw.zip (collection including other rules)
• Pattern collections by Stephen Silver: ships.zip (small spaceships) and ssguns.zip (non-glider guns)

Blogs and News Sites

• Game of Life News at Pentadecathlon
• Conway's Life: Work in Progress - a blog by Dave Greene

Other Personal Life Pages

• David Bell - for spaceship enthusiasts
• Paul Callahan - various articles and patterns
• Calcyman - stable technology, Corderships, and current unsolved problems
• David Eppstein - Gliders in Life-like cellular automata
• Achim Flammenkamp - Gardens of Eden, frequency of naturally-occurring patterns
• Nick Gotts - Game of Life Patterns with Eventful Histories
• Dean Hickerson - complex patterns such as sawtooths
• Mark Niemiec - glider synthesis and object counts
• Gabriel Nivasch - a variety of articles and code
• Andrzej Okrasinski
• Stephen Silver
• Jason Summers - Various search programs and pattern catalogs (see above), also contains a "Status of Life" page recording what is currently known about Life.

Downloadable Simulation Software

• Golly - Linux, Mac, Windows (LifeWiki article)
• Life32 - Windows (LifeWiki article)
• LifeLab - Mac
• Mirek's Cellebration - Linux, Mac, Windows
• WinLife (direct FTP link) - Windows 3.1

Downloadable Computation and/or Search Software

• Catalyst v1.0 by Gabriel Navasch - Finds ways of modifying the evolution of an input pattern by placing catalysts that react with it, by a backtracking search. Written in C++.
• gencols by Paul Callahan - Enumerates collisions between patterns (e.g. gliders and still lifes). Includes output filters to detect oscillators, spaceships, or successful eating of one pattern by another. Life evolution rule is hardcoded as a sequence of bit-parallel integer operations (so it's possible to change but not easy). Written in C.
• gfind v4.8 by David Eppstein - Search program for low-period spaceships. Extends partial patterns a row at a time, keeping track of rows in all phases of the pattern. Includes modes for finding symmetric patterns. Written in C.
• gsearch by David Eppstein - Performs a brute force search of all patterns fitting within a small rectangle. Evolves each pattern for a specified number of generations or until it repeats, grows too large, or matches a previously seen pattern. Recognizes spaceships, oscillators, unstable oscillators (such as queen bee and p90), replicators, and some puffers. Includes modes for finding symmetric patterns. Written in C.
• Hersrch by Karel Suhajda (via archive.org - the original site is down) - Searches for open or closed Herschel tracks in Conway's Game of Life, using a database of known static and periodic track components. Written in C++.
• lifesrc v3.8 by David Bell - Search program for oscillators. Written in C.
• ofind v0.9 by David Eppstein - Searches for low-period oscillators. Similar to gfind, but extends patterns in all phases simultaneously rather than a single phase at a time, and includes special handling of stator cells. User can specify what spark the oscillator should produce, or how it should interact with neighboring patterns of other periods. Written in C.
• Random Agar v1.1 by Gabriel Navasch - Looks for new Life oscillators, wicks, and agars. Generates random spatially periodic patterns, and runs them until they oscillate. Includes complete support for all possible symmetry types. Written in C++.
• Scripts forum at ConwayLife.com

Other Links Pages

• dmoz: Open Directory Project
• Golly Help: References