In 1970, mathematician Bill Gosper discovered the first glider gun, a Game of Life structure that generates an infinite stream of gliders. Go enthusiasts found a variety of other guns, and they ...

Unlike electricity, the Game of Life uses gliders as signals. ... But I won’t lie: I was a kid and thought that it could do much more than make pretty patterns on the screen.

A long-standing mystery about repeating patterns in a two-dimensional mathematical game has been solved after more than 50 years with the discovery of two final pieces in the puzzle.

The Life community now plans to look for more advanced patterns in Penrose-like universes, using the gliders as building blocks just as they are in regular Life.