1John Conway's Game of Life
2
3The Rules
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5The Game of Life was invented by John Conway (as you might have gathered).
6The game is played on a field of cells, each of which has eight neighbors (adjacent cells).
7A cell is either occupied (by an organism) or not.
8The rules for deriving a generation from the previous one are these:
9
10Survival
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12If an occupied cell has 2 or 3 neighbors, the organism survives to the next generation.
13
14Death
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16If an occupied cell has 0, 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8 occupied neighbors, the organism dies
17(0, 1: of loneliness; 4 thru 8: of overcrowding).
18
19Birth
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21If an unoccupied cell has 3 occupied neighbors, it becomes occupied.