The print edition is a hefty 1.6 kg tome, more than 3 cm thick, 22 cm wide and 28 cm tall. Lavishly illustrated with nearly five thousand drawings, graphs and diagrams, this English-language compendium looks back over half a century of astonishing discoveries and creations involving the most famous two-dimensional cellular automaton (see Tangente 194, 2020). The setting is an infinite grid in which individual cells are born, live and die. From the very simple rules governing their lives emerge unexpected cell structures that can replicate themselves, travel at varying speeds and blink like beacons in the night.
The book devotes several chapters to mathematics (population growth, movement speeds, logic gates, modular arithmetic, logarithmic functions, Turing machines and universal constructors).
Johnston and Greene's monumental work bears the dedication "To John Horton Conway, for giving us 50 years of Life". It admittedly costs €72, but its online version is free and downloadable! Another welcome feature is the "Errata & Updates" section, also available online.
Conway’s Game of Life – Mathematics and Construction.
Nathaniel Johnston and Dave Greene, Lulu.com, 494 pages, 2021, €72.
