The Game of Life is a cellular automaton created 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, needing no input from players.

One of the best-known examples of a cellular automaton, the Game of Life is a two-dimensional grid of cells, each of which is in one of two possible states, alive or dead. At each step in time, the following transitions occur:

1. Any live cell with fewer than two live neighbours dies, as if by overcrowding.

2. Any live cell with …