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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: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2020, @04:31AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2020, @04:31AM (#981825)

    That's a wonderful quote :

    So beyond some random fiddling and initial curiosity, I never did much with it. I hope the same won't be said about my real life!
          -- acid andy

       

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  • (Score: 2) by acid andy on Monday April 13 2020, @12:28PM

    by acid andy (1683) on Monday April 13 2020, @12:28PM (#981923) Homepage Journal

    Thanks! An abbreviated version is now going in my stash of Soylent sigs.

    --
    If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?

  • (Score: 2) by acid andy on Monday April 13 2020, @06:13PM

    by acid andy (1683) on Monday April 13 2020, @06:13PM (#982119) Homepage Journal

    Actually I probably won't use it as a sig anytime soon. It's too depressing. I don't mind if anyone else wants to, as long as they attribute it to me.

    --
    If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?