My favorite "Forrest Gump" moment is when Forrest quotes her mom and says : "Life is a box of chocolates, Forrest. You never know what you are going to get.". As simple as it seems, this amazing quote poses a fair question. Seriously, what is life?
We know that we are a kind of life form living in this planet since last 2 million years. We also know that what we have evolved from what might be called "very primitive cells", which probably did not appear until 4 billion years ago (Since the earliest known life form existed approximately 3.5 - 3.9 billion years ago).
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| How do you define a cat mathematically? |
Due to our short life span, we are usually incapable of understanding very long time intervals. But I can assure you that a 4 billion years time span is a long journey! The incredible thing is that, the whole process happened within the laws of nature, so doesn't this make it possible to mathematically model the whole thing, at least in theory?
John Conway is a prominent mathematician still actively working in the Department of Mathematics at Princeton University. Fairly enough, Conway had the same questions in his mind. He says : "People think mathematics is complicated. Mathematics is the simple bit. It's the stuff we can understand." and continues, "It's cats, that are complicated. What is it in that small molecules that make one cat behave from one another? How do you define a cat? I have no idea!".
Yet in 1970, Conway showed that even though life could be baffling in its complexity, the complexity arises from simple rules. The evidence came from a game, whose results were so unpredictable and incredible, they called it: "Life".
The rules were the equivalence of birth, death and survival. What would happen to any particular square, depended on its neighbors.
1.An empty square with exactly 3 contours around it, gives birth, so a new contour is added to the board.
2. Any contour with too few neighbors dies by isolation, and is removed from the board.
3. Any contour with too many neigbors dies due to competition, and is again removed from the board. The only case for the contour to survive is when the contour has exactly 2 or 3 neighbors!
The strangest thing was, with only these basic rules, when they simulated this game on a board, creatures started to appear out of nowhere! Creatures that moved, creatures that fired out smaller creatures, pumps that looked like a primitive heart!
Try it out yourselves below and see the life with "no design"!
Try it out yourselves below and see the life with "no design"!
