Inventing Game of Life (John Conway) - Numberphile

John H Conway on the creation of his Game of Life. Conway playlist: bit.ly/ConwayNumberphile
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Including the indirect roles of John von Neumann and Martin Gardner.
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[@TheRedfire21]

May he rest in peace a true genius of this century.

[@medexamtoolsdotcom]

Oh damn, and he died of covid-19 too. I met him once, in 1998, in Toronto, he gave a bunch of lectures about life and his method of figuring out the day of the week of old days with 'doomsdays'.

[@shaneofgames3825]

:(

[@falpsdsqglthnsac]

F

[@Alex-02]

Yves Nyfeler Ph.D. Are you hearing yourself speak? Are you sure you would still say that if you were one of the weak?

[@GRBtutorials]

Yves Nyfeler Ph.D. So the world would be much better off without the Game of Life? Being “weak” doesn’t mean you can’t make significant contributions to society, you know? Are you really going live by your word when you’re “old and weak”, and stay at home, and not go to the hospital so that “nature cleanses the population”? I highly doubt it.

[@MrJason005]

He died today, 11th of April 2020. Rest in peace.

[@RDaneelOliwav]

That's sad.. Its wierd, the game of life came just to my mind because I've seen it years ago and I just looked it up on KZbin and wondered if he's still alive and now I read he died not even a day ago

[@hohohoupufuru]

Put him next to three live people, maybe he'll come back

[@guyingrey1072]

@@hohohoupufuru I truly wish.

[@J3R3MI6]

Hopeful genius 📜

[@jazzochannel]

Perhaps the mathematical merits of this game are not optimal or intriguing from his perspective / evaluation, but the game will live on and keep impressing and engaging (nerds) people for at least a few more decades. People come and go. Configurations live for many turns or they don't. It's all beautiful, it's all unpredictable. Let's appreciate the curiosity and astonishment this game spurs in non-mathematicians and not dwell on his death too much? I send my sympathies to his offspring and siblings, if any, but that should not matter too much... This person's work / silly endaveor affected me in a positive way. That's enough for me to say I will remember John Conway and he has a special place among my memory neurons.

[@jeffrey1298]

"The one thing I'd really like to know before I die is-" NOOOOOOOOOOOOO... 11:02

just commenting here to get a notification when the video is released :D

[@matijabl]

...the "monster group", what it's all about, why it's there, why it exists...

[@AgustinusLaw]

WHAT, WHAT DOES HE SAY NEXT?

[@iamthetinkerman]

killed it didnt it

[@foxabilo]

the last word is "why" he would like to know WHY

[@johnclavis]

LOL he's like a musical artist that is sick of playing his biggest hit at every concert!

[@Punk4kids]

+John Clavis Not really, but close. He is more like a skilled musician, sick of everybody asking him to play a very simple song he made, and nobody asking about the truly complicated work he has done.

[@johnclavis]

Right, and everybody asks for that song because it's his most popular work -- in other words, his "biggest hit"!

[@random6434]

+John Clavis And the game of life is basically just a consequence of the halting problem, which had been resolved years before. So I suppose that's like the biggest hit also being a minor variation of Pachelbel's Canon but most people don't realise.

[@fergusmaclachlan1404]

He's a bit like Sergei Rachmaninoff with his famous C# minor prelude in that sense. Rachmaninoff grew to hate the piece because he was always asked to perform it.

[@aryasuri9421]

So, the equivalent of Creep to Radiohead.

[@OwariNeko]

Brady, you sadist editor.

[@briank5437]

Yeah, that picture at 2:00...

[@ijabbott63]

R.I.P. John Horton Conway, born 26 December 1937, died of COVID-19 on 11 April 2020 (aged 82).

[@StefanReich]

Did I care about these numbers? No

[@nadavzeira389]

@@StefanReich F off then, no one asked if you care or not . Pay some respects .

[@Pizzacheese10]

@@yvesnyfelerph.d.8297 I see your name has Ph.D. in it. I assume you got your Phd in Asshole at Dickhead Uni

[@somerandomweeb4836]

@@Pizzacheese10 I'd have to agree, wtf is wrong with him

[@coinbaselive9421]

@@yvesnyfelerph.d.8297 what is actually wrong with you.

[@MikeMoceri]

Wow. I'm amazed that Conway doesn't find his work all that extensible. I was initially inspired by a demonstration of the Game of Life on The Screen Savers when I was a kid. I based my undergraduate thesis on emergent complexity (using the Game of Life as an example) as applied to philosophy of mind and the Hard Problem. I based a lot of my graduate work in law and mind sciences on it, too. I've used Conway's Game of Life as a proof for emergent complexity, and applied the concept to numerous disciplines. Very sad that he doesn't see the value of it.

[@rich1051414]

And then there are big brain people with creations so meta it preemptively explains why they hate the thing they made which is sure to be popular, like the song 'Hook' by blues traveler. The game of life is the most extreme simplification of an idea, which I am sure he very much doesn't like. Like watching a dora the explorer version of your favorite movie.

[@hobit7585]

Look man, if all the above didnt get you laid in the real world, what makes you think they'll work in youtube comments?You oversold it.And before you ask, no, there is no way to make it sellable.

[@keiyakins]

The trick is that the extreme simplicity means anyone can grasp it, which makes it incredibly useful... OUTSIDE of mathematics. Being able to go "look at this, these simple rules can do this" and not need an extensive higher mathematics education means you can use that idea in other fields, which opens up a lot of ways to reason about our world. That doesn't make it particularly interesting to someone working in the mathematics world though

[@TheSghetty]

Wow! Is your undergraduate thesis online? I would like to read it :)

[@soufianekun11]

Hi @Mike Moceri ! You seem to be very advanced in the theory and applications of GoL and CAs (I hope) in general. So I'd like to ask you if there is a method to know if a 2D CA will "converge" given a certain set of rules and an initial patern ?

[@Jonnern]

"If you couldn't predict what it did, then probably that's because it was capable of doing anything."

[@jemesmemes9026]

I don’t know why I have tears in my eyes about this man. But I guess I never realized how inspired I was by him Rest In Peace

[@atikahrostam5778]

Same here 😢

[@FeaturingMaxAsMax]

What I liked about this video was the background: the fact that the invention of the Game of Life was very deliberate, and came from thinking abstractly about what you would need to sustain life on other planets. I didn't know that John von Neumann had already invented a similar complex system with 29 states. I'm sorry Conway was so ambivalent about the Game of Life. I totally get it, because to him the game was just a simplification, a demonstration of a principle that someone else had already discovered. It's not his own discovery and so he couldn't get very enthusiastic about it. There are other things he would rather be known for: the surreal numbers, the Conway simple groups, the 15 theorem and the 290 theorem, for example. But he doesn't quite grasp that discovery is not the only way you can contribute to the world. Sometimes taking someone else's discovery, revealing its bare essentials and making it accessible to millions of people IS an actual breakthrough.

[@NathanHedglin]

Well put! Exactly. Conway's Game of Life is so easily explained and understood. It is so simple but yet complete enough to recreate itself.

[@SiriusAundB]

I remember seeing this a few months ago, I'm coming back to pay respects to this brilliant mind. Rest in peace.

[@Aefire1]

Brady, I listened to your podcast about the comments system, but I forget if you mentioned if you still peruse the comments anyway. Here's my two cents: These video's are astonishingly good. You have introduced me and millions of others to thinkers and ways of thinking that would have been otherwise nonexistent to us. These ways of thinking will influence me for the rest of my life. Thank you.

[@ai_serf]

Seriously, this!. Aftering 'passively' watching these videos, I noticed my conceptual thinking has greatly improved. No, you won't be able to crunch equations from watching these videos, but you might learn what the equation is modeling and abstracting. You're going to get intuition for some math from watching these videos. Maybe being immersed in the mathematical world, where you pick up on their language and thinking.

[@NikiHerl]

Oh wow, that last second XD What a tease!

[@mightyNosewings]

Dude, you got to interview Conway? What, an honor.

[@Englor1]

The one thing I'd really like to know before I die is the one thing he'd really like to know before he dies.

[@morkovija]

Someone above wrote: "..the "monster group", what it's all about, why it's there, why it exists..." No idea what it is.

[@AlexAtGuilford]

You'll probably never get to know. He died yesterday, according to his friends, from Corona-virus. This has not been officially confirmed.

[@buffendene9996]

AlexSchooler in the life death video he said it: riemann hypothesis and something about monster group

[@AlexAtGuilford]

@@buffendene9996 Yeah, I've seen that since posting this comment. You make a reasonable inference.

[@AlucardNoir]

Jacob Grimm was an extraordinarily important linguist and anthropologist, mostly remembered for collecting and rewriting a series of fairy tales, J.R.R. Tolkien was a linguist and English language teacher for most of his life, he is best remembered for the Middle Earth series, and the're not even the only ones, we unfortunately don't choose what we are remembered for, Just look at Fermat, remembered for one theorem, out of hundreds, all being nothing more then his hobby.

[@deepakkumar99933]

"The one thing I'd really like to know before I die is to understand why the monster group exists" :) FTFY RIP you legend!

[@RoyAntaw]

The game goes on. So long John RIP

[@OneTimeCrazy]

I feel special when i watch this

[@rishonfernandes7976]

Imagine doing all this work before computers. The imagination one must have. Simply genius.

[@Locut0s]

I think I can understand why he doesn't really love the game. On the one had its a beautiful example of emergent complexity and has some neat properties. On the other for someone who probably loves doing more traditional, elegant math it probably seems more like an interesting bobble. I think it's similar to why some famous musicians come to hate the 2 mins in one small piece or whatever that sometimes comes to define them. They point to their whole body of work and say but THIS is what I REALLY love, that little ditty is fine I guess but it doesn't mean much to me. I think I can understand.

[@stanley2837]

From : Ms. Siobhan Robert's biography "Genius at Work" : "The sacred name of Conway! . . . he gets peeved that more often than not his name is cited only in reference to the Game of Life. He has invented many an idiosyncratic algorithm-for counting stairs while you climb without actually counting... "

[@rustycherkas8229]

Apparently Ravel, famous for "Bolero", said, "I've written only one masterpiece -- Bolero. Unfortunately it has no music in it."

[@MadScientist267]

I think there's the "but it's just a couple effing simple rules!" and after years of seeing what's come of it, while some of the journey was inspiring, especially early on... After a bit... Yeah he's long gone past it and it is now a brick in his foundation. He recognizes some of the reach but he probably went on in a totally different direction than the rest of the world and basically "we won't let it go" to him hahaha

[@djbside1965]

RIP John Conway (1937-2020) and thanks for your brilliance. You will be sadly missed, Sir.

[@TranscenDaMental]

Wow, I love his realness! Rest In Peace. I’m truly intrigued and inspired by the concepts of Conway’s Game of Life.

[@SP3HSSMAHREEN]

Thanks, high school comp sci teacher for giving our class the basics way back when, and thanks numberphile for giving all that neat extra info that I continue to watch for

[@jaredwfrick]

Has it been tried three-dimensionally? Is there an iteration where the behaviors of the pieces can evolve new strategies (or forget or lose old ones) for reproduction/control of game volume/etc.?

[@jackerylel]

Could be possible in minecraft for example

[@dukcy7450]

Eugene Vovk well isn’t that possible because Minecraft has a complex yet simple AI system that generates seeds and spawn rates? However, there is a limit to the game has a computational limit, so wouldn’t that mean there isn’t a way for that?

[@jackerylel]

@@dukcy7450 yes I believe if you are far enough away in Minecraft then it will not compute the interactions. Then perhaps Unity is the best option

[@AnonAnono]

@@jackerylel did you just say that because graphics engine + cubes ?

[@jackerylel]

@@AnonAnono yes and easier mod support. Any programming language that supports easy array indexing can simulate this, but I imagine visualizing it is the interesting part

[@juangreen8194]

thanks for the video, Conway is a legend.

[@larrym3637]

i get sad when one of the 2x2 squares die :(

[@Backtrack3332]

F

[@manuelchamorro1993]

i actually dont like the 2x2 squares, i like when the gliders (the little ones that move foreverly on the board and repeat themselves) hit the squares and i love it when they reborn from the chaotic celular like explosions

[@Astrobrant2]

"i get sad when one of the 2x2 squares die :(" Don't think of them as dying. Just think of them as food pellets or mines. Food pellet: when a pattern hits it the pattern expands, oscillates, or generates new patterns. Mine: when a pattern hits it the pattern and mine are blown up and nothing remains. Yeah, that's destructive, but at least it fulfilled a purpose. Think of it the way Dennis Hopper's character thinks of it in the movie _Speed_ .

[@oliverdiamond6594]

i made one that duplicated itself and then ate the duplicate

[@TomHiggins]

Brady, I do not ask this of many of your great works, but given that so many of us have spent so much of our time dabbling in the fields of Life can we please please get as much of the footage from the Conway interviews as you might want to share? Please. Of all your subjects Conway is the one i would love to hear more from. Ok to be honest I would love to hear more from most of your subjects, but Conway in particular. Also, good work on HI, I am enjoying your interchange with CGP .

[@THExRISER]

I second this, especially considering that now, we sadly won't be getting anything new from Mr Conway now that he passed away.

[@ToastyBoy17]

Now I have to watch the next video! My curiosity of boils within me, growing with each second!

[@devilette]

RIP Dr. Conway. He honestly was my inspiration for getting back into maths after uni. The inspiration for creating the Game of Life came from a broader theory called "surreal numbers", which he goes into in his book "On Numbers and Games." Pretty interesting, if you're into number theory.

[@coders111]

thank you for sharing this moment with john Conway !

[@andraslibal]

I was just teaching this in my simulation class today, so glad I found Conway talking about his work.

[@SebastienChataignon]

I just heard about his passing away due to Covid-19. It's a great loss. May he rest in peace.

[@vox__ama6458]

May he rest in peace. The true definition of genius

[@bokchoiman]

This is brilliant. Absolutely astonished at this.

[@morani789]

It is such a pleasure to listen to John Conway!

[@Dayanto]

That ending :P

[@Dmirtao]

These videos with Conway are so great.Thanks Brady! I would be very interested to hear Conway explain his Angel-Devil game, I always found that an interesting game theory problem, and it could be cool to show it off much like the pebbling videos with Dr. Stankova.

[@makingmemark]

thanks so much for recording this

[@Dagrond]

Bravo Brady - and thanks John!

[@DustNunchakuKing]

Could listen to him talk about math and life for hours.

[@MuncleUscles]

Fascinating! The game of life is neat and all, a great example of emergent complexity, but I can completely understand how he's done with it. Can't wait to hear him talk about other topics he finds interesting

[@lucasmontec]

Rest in peace my friend! Thanks for all the creativity and wonder!

[@RsTheZigec]

I really liked both of the videos. Good job

[@Banzybanz]

RIP John. Just out of sheer coincidence, I googled for the Game of Life last week and turned out he had passed away the previous day.

[@nicolassamanez6590]

The world lost a brilliant mathematician today. RIP John Conway

[@johubify]

RIP JON CONWAY

[@GH-oi2jf]

I remember reading the original Martin Gardner column on Life (1970). That was such a wonderful column. The rest of the magazine, too. I hardly ever look at the current version of the magazine.

[@SweHolme]

that ending...uncool...

[@numberphile]

I don't consider that the end of THIS video, it is a trailer of something in another upcoming video with Conway.... The bit before the "end slate" is the end of THIS video!

[@SweHolme]

Numberphile aha ^^ okej :-)

[@trucid2]

***** Let's hope it won't take too long, or we'll never find out.

[@Albin_Evald]

+Numberphile well none of the (two) links in this video takes you to a video where he finish off that sentence, so i consider it an END alright !

[@denisl2760]

+Numberphile So it's been 2 years.......still waiting

[@makaipost260]

There is a new shooter game that just came out called SUPERHOT. In the game's menu (which is set up like an old 1980s work computer) there is a file that has a bunch of mini "games" in it. One of the mini-games is the game of life.

[@keksoslav1743]

Realy? I didnt find this game

[@legendgames128]

I have it on Xbox One. Rest in piece John Conway.

[@TroubleMakersMinecraft]

Legend psvr is better

[@_mossy_8520]

RIP one of the greatest mind of his generation created one of the best games out there

[@JayHeather]

Goodbye man, you were a true genius. May your soul rest in math heaven.

[@pyramear5414]

RIP John Conway.

[@ayoyok]

this is better than the listed one, please but please give us more with this guy!

[@numberphile]

I will list this one too - just didn't want to bombard everyone's inboxes and feeds, etc, with two videos at once... and there is more to come.

[@Humineral]

I can't wait for the next edition!

[@metfan999]

Loving the quality of your videos!

[@andrewkocurek195]

Man, that end of the video is some pretty dastardly trolling.

[@somebodythatiusedtoknoooooooow]

Inventing game of life. This is truly inspirational. I like his style of not taking it too serious because its all too damn serious and unpredictable. Really amazing story ! So, long time ago we have seriously started planning to deploy machines on Mars for the betterment of mankind :) Makes me fuzzy and warm inside.

[@MrBLAA]

RIP Mr. Conway. You can definitely tell he's from another era of computing power... "well if someone asks me if I can tell, I think 'Oh, maybe that thing looks like it might fall out after 25 moves or so'. " *with most individuals now, thinking in the "one hundred thousand moves or so" era

[@LeCheeZy]

thank you both very much

[@Kram1032]

Really nice! - Could you talk with him about the other stuff he did? What, would Conway say, is his favourite underrated piece of work?

[@reilyn5366]

It's such a pleasure to listen to him talk. May he rest in peace.

[@brightboy3626]

RIP to this man🙏

[@NoActuallyGo-KCUF-Yourself]

KZbin recommending me these Conway Life videos one year after. Thanks for the cry..

[@amycupcake6832]

Rest In Peace John Conway! :'(

[@IMortage]

You can tell for some invidiual problems/configurations that they will not halt, though. Like the glider, or the glider cannon, which will both run infinitely. There just isn't a general algorithm to decide whether it'll halt or not.

[@habibaghasafari2237]

it's absolutely amazing!

[@Aefire1]

Utterly amazing.

[@drkaranmannan]

"if you cant predict what it does , well then it can probably do anything"

[@massimookissed1023]

Is that why You made all those quarks and a few simple rules? Just to see what might happen? "Wow! Galaxies, sweet. Whoa! Supernova, that was cool! Blackholes, huh. Awesome! Wow, the Muslims *really* don't like the Jews!"

[@drkaranmannan]

+Massimo O'Kissed Hey! the universe was my high school science project. had to make some adjustments to impress the teacher...

[@JorgetePanete]

Victor Reznov can't* predict

[@cryingwater]

1980s: I can't predict the future 2019:

[@cryingwater]

@@tthung8668 wtf, stop self liking your own comment

[@leo848]

R.I.P. John Conway (1937 - 2020)

[@ReplicateReality]

still one of my fave videos

[@OoJxShadow]

Very nice! Thanks for this video.

[@MysticJabulon]

RIP John Conway

[@GanerRL]

when you think about it, a photon is just a glider

[@Ejeby]

in what way?

[@williamvasudevan]

Go is such a great game as well! From one great game another is created!

[@empoleon7750]

Coding this was actually our first major assignment in one of my college classes this past semester.

[@jdferreira]

I know the game of life is uber cool and stuff. But I would really like to see Conway talk about surreal numbers!

[@Holobrine]

2:53 I like his metaphor. When he says tape I assume he means cassette tape. In a more modern sense, DNA is like a DVD: you know the movie's information is stored on it, but without the DVD Player, you have no idea what the movie will be. To make it even more like DNA, suppose the movie on the DVD can change based on who is watching it. In other words, it changes based on its environment.

[@hugopristauz3620]

Forty years ago I stumbled over the game of life by a book of (mentioned) Martin Gardner. Again and again I got in touch with cellular automata and wondering how such simple rules can generate so complex behavior, while imagining that our physical laws might have a much simpler basis. So nice to see and hear now John Conway talking about his creation.

[@ranmindyt2902]

You won’t be forgotten.

[@monochr0m]

Rest in Peace Mr Conway.

[@VinBadaBing]

Going back to inhabiting Mars, he mentioned a machine that builds a copy of itself, which to me sounds like a RepRap (Replicating RapidPrototyper). It is a 3D printer that prints parts for other 3D printers. Keep in mind, I said parts, not an entire printer, so I wonder if 3D printers combined with a smelting furnace (like he mentioned) could achieve this task.

[@d.lawrencemiller5755]

We miss you 💜

[@DamaKubu]

Man seeing great Conway himself sure is great!

[@muhammadreyaaz808]

Came here after hearing his death from coronavirus. RIP man. You’ve been great

[@trashcat3000]

Rest in Peace

[@yeshesdevi]

I read about his game in Martin Gardner's Mathematical Games column when I was maybe a freshman in high school, and it was one of the first programs I wrote -- also on a PDP-8.

[@sigmundfreud7903]

It may be a year too late for me but RIP to a truly brilliant mathematician

[@StevenLiIsHere]

Brady, you should put a link to Vi Hart's video on hexaflexagons.

[@denelson83]

RIP. 😥

[@mathmachine4266]

Even though it wasn't anything impressive mathematically, conways game of life still inspires a lot of people to be interested in computer science. Whenever I show people my programs, they're always more fascinated by the game of life than they are by any of the other, more impressive things I make. I think that's the magic of it.

[@yasiru89]

Numberphile Really hope you'll have more videos featuring Conway. Would be great if you could get him to talk about surreal numbers or the free will theorem. Thanks for these as always.

[@lipsach]

I would like to see more interviews like this, with people like Ernő Rubik, Alexey Pajitnov...

[@scoutgaming737]

Rip Jonh Conway [*]

[@somewony]

Conway has a great voice to listen to.

[@thetrashrabbit]

Man was a F***ing LEGEND!

[@BinaryReader]

John Conway is awesome! i rate him highly along side others such as Benoît Mandelbrot. There is something deeply interesting about the game of life in regards to emergent behavior. Regardless of its simplicity, i think he should feel proud of having come up with it, and having his name associated with it. It's a little bit sad he feels negative towards it :( After all, it is the simple things that resonate well with people, and when you have a simple thing with such complex behavior, you give people something very accessible and deep to think about. Not all mathematicians can associate such a thing with their name. He should feel proud :)

[@MowGohhldRequired]

Yeah, there are many unknown great thinker. Fame also comes with the urge to be famous. John Bardeen is also as great as unknown. He was a physicist however. He has won 2 Noble prices and was involved in figuring out the transistor we use in every machines these days. Actually it was the Japanese who first understood the potential of this technology (Transistor-Radio) _omg, 6 years old entryr ^^'_

[@passer2by]

R.I.P the genius. After Stephen, the reckless time has taken yet another great mind away from us.

[@matherman1111]

R.i.p John Conway, may his work continue thriving in the world of mathematics

[@Sephyroth1066]

Once again, a legend... :)