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John Conway, Inventor of the Game of Life Reported Dead from COVID-19

posted by martyb on Sunday April 12 2020, @06:38PM   Printer-friendly
from the he-won-the-Game-of-Life dept.

acid andy writes:

John Horton Conway, mathematician and inventor of Conway's Game of Life has been reported by a colleague to have died from COVID-19 at the age of 82. Conway's death has also been reported (in Italian) by the Italian website "MaddMaths!".

From Wikipedia:

The Game of Life, also known simply as Life, is a cellular automaton devised by the British mathematician John Horton Conway in 1970. The game is a zero-player game, meaning that its evolution is determined by its initial state, requiring no further input. One interacts with the Game of Life by creating an initial configuration and observing how it evolves. It is Turing complete and can simulate a universal constructor or any other Turing machine.

Many different types of patterns occur in the Game of Life, which are classified according to their behaviour. Common pattern types include: still lifes, which do not change from one generation to the next; oscillators, which return to their initial state after a finite number of generations; and spaceships, which translate themselves across the grid.

Rest In Peace, John.

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 2, Disagree) by canopic jug on Sunday April 12 2020, @07:07PM (4 children)

    by canopic jug (3949) Subscriber Badge on Sunday April 12 2020, @07:07PM (#981655) Journal

    Ok. Thanks. It looks like the sad news is confirmed by the one source there in your first link. Tweeter is just hearsay and the third link does not seem to mention his death.

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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by takyon on Sunday April 12 2020, @07:53PM (3 children)

    by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Sunday April 12 2020, @07:53PM (#981674) Journal

    Twitter is not just hearsay.

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    • (Score: 3, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Sunday April 12 2020, @08:21PM (1 child)

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday April 12 2020, @08:21PM (#981682) Journal

      You're right. It's just twitsay.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by DannyB on Monday April 13 2020, @04:33PM

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Monday April 13 2020, @04:33PM (#982053) Journal

      Twitter is not just hearsay.

      Heresy?

      Difficult to know what to believe in the age of the Trump virus.

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