{"id":307,"date":"2022-09-22T19:44:55","date_gmt":"2022-09-22T19:44:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dgipl.com\/blog\/?p=307"},"modified":"2022-09-22T21:49:10","modified_gmt":"2022-09-22T21:49:10","slug":"it-from-bit-is-the-universe-a-cellular-automaton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dgipl.com\/blog\/it-from-bit-is-the-universe-a-cellular-automaton\/","title":{"rendered":"It From Bit: Is The Universe A Cellular Automaton?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In the early 1970s, computer programmers around the world were entranced by the strange happenings\u00a0taking place on their screens. Right before their eyes, they observed digital creatures emerging from the void, crawling around, propagating, gobbling each other up, and vanishing into nothingness. It was all part of John Conway\u2019s popular\u00a0Game of Life<\/a>: a simple algorithm that produced remarkably complex patterns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Conway's
Conway’s Game of Life is a popular and very simple algorithm for encoding the evolution of a system<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Game of Life starts with a checkerboard grid in which each square, or \u201ccell,\u201d is populated by a binary piece of digital information\u2014a bit\u2014set to either zero or one. For the purposes of the game, zero represents non-existent or \u201cdead\u201d (an empty cell) and one represents \u201calive\u201d (an occupied cell). After the initial values are seeded, the screen is updated repeatedly\u2014with each iteration depending on the previous one according to rules based upon each cell\u2019s immediate neighborhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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If a living cell has fewer than two neighbors, it dies; if it has four or more neighbors, it dies; if it has two or three, it remains alive. If a non-living cell has exactly three neighbors, it comes to life. These are the basic rules to Conway’s game of life.
 
DAVID HUA, YONATAN BIEL, AND MARTIN PELIKAN \/ STARS-2012 PROGRAM<\/small><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Whenever an empty cell (with a zero) is surrounded by precisely three occupied cells (with ones), a \u201cbirth\u201d takes place upon the next iteration, and it becomes occupied. If a living cell has fewer than two other living cells in its vicinity it \u201cdies\u201d of \u201cunderpopulation.\u201d More than three, and it \u201cdies\u201d of \u201coverpopulation.\u201d Only if a living cell has two or three others in its neighborhood does it survive until the next round. The result is an ever-evolving series of patterns, resembling living creatures. Some of these configurations, such as the so-called \u201cglider gun\u201d (developed by Bill Gosper and sometimes known as Gosper’s glider gun) seem to produce recurrent streams of \u201corganisms,\u201d spawned like tadpoles from digital \u201cparents.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n