312K views · Oct 9, 2012 · 3:37 · 4 HN recommenders · 10 mentions · discussed 2012–2022
Tim Hutton's demonstration of SmoothLifeL, a continuous version of Conway's Game of Life using floating point values. It shows gliders traveling in any direction, rotating pairs, and elastic cord-like structures, with config details to run it yourself.
Why Hacker News points people here: HN points to it whenever Game of Life or cellular automata come up, as the best visual example of a mesmerizing continuous-domain alternative.
“Must see evolution of GOL”HN comment, 2020
“Must see evolution of GOL”
SmoothLife, continuous Game of Life with floating point values
Must see evolution of GOL: "SmoothLife is a family of rules created by Stephan Rafler. It was designed as a continuous version of Conway's Game of Life - using floating point values instead of integers." this video link
“I find SmoothLife more interesting”
SmoothLife as a more interesting take on Game of Life
24 parallel games combined in a way indecipherable to normal human eyes isn't terribly interesting to me. I find SmoothLife more interesting: this video
“Check out the video[0]”
Mesmerizing continuous-domain version of Game of Life
If you're mesmerized by the "Game of Life" like I am your going to enjoy the Continuously Domain versions like smooth life. Check out the video[0], and an implementation in python[1] on HN. [0]: this video [1]: link
“best video of SmoothLife”
Best video of SmoothLife
Toffoli[0] & Margolus’[1] Cellular Automata Machines (1987) is the CA bible, I guess. Andrew Adamatsky edited the encyclopedic Cellular Automata (2018). Ed Fredkin's[2] stuff on reversible CA is fascinating. Gerard Vichniac[3] wrote some great papers in the 80s, e.g. Simulating Physics with Cellular Automata (1984). Kenichi Morita[4] papers. Rudy Rucker[5] has written a lot of stuff on 1 and 2D CA, and worked as a CA programmer. Etc. There are a lot of papers. The very common finite element method of solving differential equations and PDEs is basically the same thing as CA - see e.g. Anderson's Computational Fluid Dynamics . Attractors and approximations for lattice dynamical systems by Shengfan Zhou, 2002. 1954's Studies of Nonlinear Problems by Fermi, Ulam, Pasta, featuring a 1D CA. link Noether's theorem comes up frequently - that every symmetry of the system corresponds to a conservation law.[6] Smooth Life is Stephan Rafler's very cool version of CGOL with every discrete aspect turned into a continuous one.[7] [0] link [1] link link [2] link [3] link [4] link [5] link [6] link [7] best video of SmoothLife this video link This slideshow by Rafler contains the best, most complete explanation of it I've found: link Shadertoy version link
“Technical details on the YouTube page”
SmoothLife video with technical details and source code
Original post: link Technical details on the YouTube page: this video (Two lots of source code available: Stephan's and mine) Other discussions about this: Reddit: link Metafilter: link
“do not seem to replicate the output of the video”
Good job. Any idea why using the parameters specified in the video description of this video do not seem to replicate the output of the video? link I tried the same parameters in the version downloadable at link and it did not seem to produce similar output to the video either.
“which uses turing style reaction-diffusion equations”
Smooth life using Turing-style reaction-diffusion equations
If you are familiar with Conway's game of life, there is also "smooth life" which uses turing style reaction-diffusion equations: this video
“For those interested, there are also”
Example of continuous cellular automata
(not directly related to the article) The cellular automata in the article is a discrete one. For those interested, there are also "continuous" automata this video .
“Reminds me of SmoothLife.”
Video of SmoothLifeL generalizing Game of Life to continuous domain
Reminds me of SmoothLife. Generalization of Conway's "Game of Life" to a continuous domain - SmoothLife (Stephan Rafler) link Video of SmoothLifeL: this video
“Tim Hutton's video”
Tim Hutton's SmoothLife video
Also: link featuring the seminal paper by Stephan Rafler and Tim Hutton's video this video link featuring a more recent variant
