ConwayLife.com

The challenge:
Starting from a single live cell, create a pattern that reaches exactly 256 live cells for the first time in Generation 256.

Rules:

• Start with a single live cell
• Use Golly's native capabilities as much as possible, without Python or Lua programming
• The population must be exactly 256 at Generation 256
• It must be the first time the population reaches 256
• No manually counting cells or generations

Bonus:
A smaller or more elegant initial pattern is better.

Can it be done?
Show us your pattern and let's see how you solve it!

Happy Programmer's Day!

MortezaRahmani wrote: September 13th, 2026, 11:30 am The challenge:
Starting from a single live cell, create a pattern that reaches exactly 256 live cells for the first time in Generation 256.

Rules:

• Start with a single live cell
• Use Golly's native capabilities as much as possible, without Python or Lua programming
• The population must be exactly 256 at Generation 256
• It must be the first time the population reaches 256
• No manually counting cells or generations

Bonus:
A smaller or more elegant initial pattern is better.

Can it be done?
Show us your pattern and let's see how you solve it!

Happy Programmer's Day!
HappyProgrammersDay.png

Correct solution:

I’m convinced that, one day, a deeper understanding of cellular automata will allow us to solve many of these challenges elegantly, in ways that come surprisingly close to the reality of the problem.
So, let this stand as a record until that day comes.

What?Huh?HowIsThatPossible?

Here is a rather different kind of challenge.
Can you create something in Conway's Game of Life that looks like a galaxy?
There are no strict rules here. No specific population, generation, size, or mathematical definition of a galaxy. Just use your imagination and see what you can create.
Inspired by this beautiful mathematical visualization by David Moore.
For anyone interested in the original idea, mathematics, or the code behind it, here are the original sources:
David Moore:
Limit of algebraic polynomial roots: playing around with randomness and algebraic numbers
https://bit.ly/2YcsoUA
Vitaliy Kaurov:
the LinkedIn post that brought this beautiful work to my attention.
https://lnkd.in/p/eTbdX45h
Feel free to explore the original work, take inspiration from it, and then try to create your own galaxy-like world in Conway's Game of Life.

Can simple rules that lead to complex, even highly complex behavior be turned into a real, tangible, and visible machine?

In other words:
Can we build an automaton whose rules are simple, yet whose execution gives rise to complex and highly complex behavior that can be observed, touched, and experienced as a physical machine?

Yeah! Don't just simulate the cellular automaton. Build it!
Toranj started as a cellular automaton implemented in Excel.

ToranjCircuit is an attempt to take the same idea one step further: from simulation to physical realization.

A 1000 × 1000 matrix of RGB LEDs, where the cells are not merely displaying the automaton, but physically represent its evolving state.

Generation 1 → Generation 2 → ... → Generation 438 → ...

*The concept, specifications and visual direction are mine; the image was generated with AI.

I've been dealing with a seasonal cold recently, and while thinking about what my white blood cells are doing inside my body right now, I started thinking about cellular automata.

That somehow led me to this idea.
I came across this short video showing a white blood cell surrounding and engulfing bacteria, and it made me wonder:
Could we create a cellular automaton that produces something resembling this behavior?
The basic idea would be to create a very simple artificial immune system with a few basic entities:

• White blood cells
• Pathogens / bacteria
• Empty space

The white blood cell would ideally be able to:

1. Detect a nearby pathogen
2. Move toward it
3. Surround it
4. Engulf it
5. Eventually eliminate or absorb it

But I think the really interesting part is that none of this should be explicitly programmed as a sequence of actions.
Instead, the behavior could emerge from simple local rules.
For example, rather than telling a white blood cell "go toward the bacterium", we could define rules based only on its local neighborhood. If a pathogen is nearby, certain cells at the boundary could change state or extend toward it. Once the pathogen becomes partially surrounded, further local interactions could cause the surrounding structure to continue growing around it.
Eventually, complete engulfment could emerge naturally from those local interactions.
Simple local rules → complex, biological-looking behavior.
I think it would be particularly interesting if the white blood cell were not just a predefined pattern moving around, but a genuinely shape-shifting object.
Its "body" could dynamically extend pseudopod-like structures, change shape, surround pathogens, and eventually absorb them, all as an emergent consequence of the rules.
And perhaps the idea could be taken further.
For example:

• Pathogens could reproduce: 1 → 2 → 4 → 8...
• White blood cells could have a limited capacity for engulfment.
• Movement or engulfment could have some kind of "cost".
• A white blood cell could become temporarily inactive after engulfing a pathogen.
• Additional white blood cells could appear or be recruited when the pathogen population becomes large.

At that point, it could become a very simple artificial immune system, with something like:
Pathogen reproduction vs. immune-cell response
But the main question is much simpler:
Can a small set of local rules produce behavior that looks surprisingly similar to phagocytosis?
I haven't worked out the rules yet. I'm mainly throwing the idea out there because I thought it might make an interesting Life-like experiment.
Has anyone seen a cellular automaton that produces similar behavior, or perhaps something that could be adapted to this idea?
I'd be particularly interested in seeing how far we could get using only local interactions, without explicitly programming the overall behavior.