Game of Life

Conway’s Game of Life is a two-dimensional cellular automaton whose simple rules give rise to strikingly complex, lifelike behavior — a classic example of emergence. I vibe coded this interactive simulator to accompany the public lecture series Physik, die Wissen schafft at the University of Stuttgart in 2026. The event was accompanied by a science fair where visitors could explore the simulator on a big touchscreen.

The simulator has many features: You can draw cells by hand, drop in classic patterns from a library (gliders, oscillators, glider guns, …), or seed a random pattern. The size of the periodic “world” can be changed as well. Since the simulation is hardware accelerated (it runs on your dedicated GPU if you have one), it is quite efficient and can handle very large worlds. There is even a OTCA metapixel and a 3x3 OTCA meta-blinker in the library which demonstrates the peculiar feature that the Game of Life can simulate itself recursively.

Note that the interface is in German, as it was intended for a German public-outreach event!