Life

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You can read from http://www.abc.net.au/science/holo/lablife.htm that Life is a computer simulation devised in the 1960's by the mathematician John Horton Conway. It's a very good example of how a few simple rules can quickly create order out of chaos. The simulation takes place on a 2-dimensional grid divided into cells. Each cell has eight neighbouring cells and can be either "alive" or "dead". The rules which determine it's fate are very simple:

1. If a cell has one or no living neighbours, it will die of loneliness.
2. If it has too many neighbours - four or more - it will die from overcrowding.
3. New cells are "born" whenever an empty square has exactly three living neighbors.