Pattern guides
Learn Conway's Game of Life with runnable guides
Start with B3/S23, then compare oscillators, spaceships, methuselahs, and glider guns. Each guide answers a focused question and links to the exact pattern you can run next.
Life basics
Core rules, notation, and mental models for reading a Life board.
Pattern studies
Blog-style explainers for the structures readers usually learn first.
Still lifes are the quiet objects that make Life engineering possible
A block or beehive looks inert, but stable objects become anchors, eaters, and cleanup tools in larger reactions.
Read article6 min readOscillators and periods in Conway's Game of Life
Compare blinker, pulsar, pentadecathlon, and queen bee shuttle periods, then run each oscillator to see its phase return.
Read article5 min readSpaceships and the glider in Conway's Game of Life
Compare the period-4 glider and LWSS: diagonal c/4 versus orthogonal c/2, with runnable examples for both spaceship types.
Read article8 min readMethuselah patterns compared by lifespan and outcome
Compare R-pentomino, Acorn, Diehard, and Edna by seed size, lifespan, extinction, and final ash, then choose a runnable pattern.
Read article7 min readWhich 3x3 methuselah should you run?
Looking for a 3x3 Game of Life methuselah? Run the five-cell R-pentomino and verify its 1,103-generation, 116-cell outcome.
Read article6 min readGosper glider gun: period 30, 36 cells, infinite growth
Period 30, 36 cells, one glider per cycle: run the Gosper glider gun and verify how a finite Life pattern grows forever.
Read article7 min readCommon objects in Conway's Game of Life: the patterns you see first
Map common Conway Life objects: stable ash, period-2 and period-3 oscillators, spaceships, methuselahs, guns, and runnable examples.
Read article7 min readSpaceships in Conway's Game of Life: gliders, LWSS, HWSS, and Loafer
Compare glider, LWSS, MWSS, HWSS, and Loafer by period, direction, and speed, then open each spaceship in the simulator.
Read article6 min readGosper vs Simkin glider guns: period 30 vs period 120
Compare the historical period-30 Gosper gun with the compact period-120 Simkin gun, then run both patterns in the lab.
Read article7 min readPuffers, rakes, and breeders in Conway's Game of Life
Pufferfish, switch engines, rakes, and breeders are the growth patterns that make the infinite board useful.
Read article7 min readLife engineering starts with eaters, Herschels, and reflectors
Eater 1, B-heptomino, Herschel, and Snark-style reflectors explain how Life patterns become controlled signal circuitry.
Read articleTools and formats
How Life communities store, share, and simulate patterns at scale.
RLE is the small text format behind many Life patterns
Run Length Encoded files make patterns portable: dimensions, optional rules, and compact rows of live and dead cells.
Read article6 min readWhat Golly is for, and why a web lab still needs it
Golly is the serious desktop tool for huge cellular-automata experiments; a website should teach the first moves and hand off advanced work cleanly.
Read article5 min readHow to read LifeWiki without getting lost
LifeWiki is a catalogue, not a guided course. The trick is to read pattern pages through behavior, facts, files, and links back to experiments.
Read article6 min readWhich Life patterns belong on an infinite board?
Large guns, growth patterns, Turing machines, breeders, and hotels are better served by an isolated Hashlife-powered viewer than by a fixed teaching grid.
Read articleResearch threads