Talk:Conway's Game of Life

Conway's criteria

I've tagged the list of Conway's criteria as needing a better source. A "private communication" to a mailing list might not be impossible to verify, but it's pretty hard; searching for what apparently was the text of that message (see also the edit history) on the public web finds nothing. XOR'easter (talk) 18:28, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

The mailing list in question was private and is defunct (became hosted on Yahoo! Groups which stopped working in 2020). I don't know if full archives are saved anywhere. I have copies of messages for some ranges of dates but they don't cover that date. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:46, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Dang. Thanks for looking, though! XOR'easter (talk) 18:48, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

In 2019, Dvgrn sent me an archive of the mailing list (known as "LifeCA") spanning 1992 to 2009, and, if it means anything, I can confirm that the message in question is indeed real. It's actually an excerpt from a relatively long email by Conway which itself was a reply to an even longer one by Nick Gotts regarding the universality proof outlined in Winning Ways. However, he does not give any sort of list of criteria in this email. Ionmars10 (talk) 01:38, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the confirmation! I believe the list of criteria was originally taken from Gardner's article, and then modified. Gardner doesn't talk about a universal Turing machine or a von Neumann universal constructor. To be honest, I don't really follow the rationale for the change. Gardner doesn't say that Conway thought populations would stay bounded; he says that Conway wanted initial patterns that apparently do grow without limit without this being easy to prove. To me, this is consistent with saying the whole point of "life" was to find a universal CA. I've tried to wrangle that part of the "Origins" section to attribute these things more clearly. XOR'easter (talk) 03:13, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

Game Of Life And Death

Game Of Life And Death [sic] redirects here but isn't mentioned anywhere in the article. According to the article very briefly at that location, it was or is a variant of the Game of Life. Is it likely that a mention in the "variations" section could be useful, or should the redirect be deleted? – Arms & Hearts (talk) 19:43, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

I don't think there's any content worth saving or mentioning. It's just someone's non-notable app. As far as I can tell the redirect should be deleted. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:13, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

"Game Of Life And Death" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Game Of Life And Death and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 April 23#Game Of Life And Death until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 20:39, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

"Conway's game of life in reverse" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Conway's game of life in reverse and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 April 24#Conway's game of life in reverse until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 16:47, 24 April 2022 (UTC)