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How Cellular Automata Work

A cellular automaton is a grid of cells, each either alive or dead. Every generation, each cell counts its 8 neighbors (Moore neighborhood) and applies a rule to determine its next state.

B3/S23 → Birth if 3 neighbors, Survive if 2 or 3
  • BBirth — a dead cell becomes alive if it has exactly this many live neighbors.
  • SSurvival — a live cell stays alive if it has this many live neighbors. Otherwise it dies.

Conway's Game of Life (B3/S23) is the most famous example. Simple rules produce gliders, oscillators, and even Turing-complete computation.

Patterns

Rule Set

Controls

150ms
FastSlow
Toroidal Wrap

Statistics

Generation

0

Population

0

Density

0.0%

Rule

B3/S23

Game of Life