B3/S23: birth with 3 neighbors, survive with 2-3. Turing complete. Glider guns prove the universality of emergence from simple local rules.
Patterns:
Glider
Gosper Gun
Blinker
Beacon
Pulsar
R-pentomino
LWSS
Block
Generation: 0
Population: 0
Speed: 10 gen/s
Conway's Game of Life (1970) is Turing complete — it can simulate any computation. John Conway proved this using glider guns: a pattern that emits gliders indefinitely. Gliders can encode binary signals; logic gates can be built from collisions. The Gosper glider gun (1970) was the first infinite-growth pattern found. Phase transitions: random soup at density ~0.37 gives maximum activity before quiescence. Click the canvas to toggle cells.