Games of life

Abstract

Cellular automata are widely used in undergraduate physics courses to educate students in elementary programming and for project work. Cellular automata are coded with simple rules yet provide a rich if well-trodden landscape for exploring aspects of physics such as diffusion and magnetism. Mathematical games, such as the minority game or the prisoner's dilemma, are also amenable to project work with the added dimension of applications in finance, econophysics, and social physics. Conway's classical game of life is both a mathematical game and a cellular automaton. We exploit adaptations of Conway's game of life as an opportunity for undergraduate students to explore new territory within the safe haven of an easy-to-implement cellular automaton. Students may discover new “lifeforms” comprising collections of live, dead, and part-live cells, and explore the escalation of floating-point errors leading to chaos-like behavior, amongst many phenomena not observed in Conway's classical counterpart.