ConwayLife.com

I need help to illustrate a problem graphically. I THINK that it might be possible to do it with a version of LIFE somewhere but how and which I have NO IDEA. I will describe what I need to do and would be hugely grateful for any pointers.

I need to

a) populate a number of squares with a group of animals (say 200 squares populated out of 2,000)
b) depopulate a % of squares randomly (whether occupied or not)
c) depopulate the same % non-randomly, targeting occupied ones but with variable efficiency

The point is to illustrate the difference between b and c graphically. It's a real problem and it's a matter of life and death for many thousands of animals. I might be able to say more about it later. I am sure it's doable in Excel but not by me in the time by which I need to do it.

Thanks for any help.

Cellular automata such as Life are not particularly good at doing anything at random, really.

What part of the b/c difference do you want to illustrate? The amount of "misses" approach b) would yield? Something related to the "variable efficiency" of approach c)? Something related to the overall distribution? Seems like a simple overlay approach in a graphic editing program might work; first generate the 10% "noise", then multiply this with another random noise pattern to get the b) results, then do another run of whatever exactly is going on in c), then overlay these for the final results. Or just leave them side-to-side.

But anyway, this does not seem to involve much in the time dimension, which is one of the key features of cellular automata…

OK, I hoped there might be an implementation that permitted random population of cells but that isn't critical if it can be done using a list.

The point of the difference between b and c is to show the effect on the residual population of the difference between targeting a % of cells and not doing so.

I take your point about the time dimension. I could add some rule about the reproductive success of the occupied squares and do some iterations; that could be useful. However, in the first instance I'm looking for a way to quickly generate two diagrams showing different outcomes for the first iteration.