256 tiny universes

Each row is one generation. Every cell looks at itself and its two neighbours, and the rule number, read as 8 bits, says whether it lives or dies next. That’s the whole program.

Rule 30

309011018473150Random start

Some rules die out, some freeze, some repeat forever. Rule 30 looks random enough that Mathematica once used it as a random number generator. Rule 110 is Turing complete: with the right starting row it can compute anything a computer can.

This is a starter experiment for the site, here to prove the pipeline works end to end.