C# :

The Game of Life program assignment follows the material from Chapters 7 and 8 in your book. There are 2 major focus points for this project:

• 2 dimensional arrays - This is our first data structure that moves beyond a simple linear list of values. We will expand this and also look at some of the built in collections in the C# FCL.
• nested for loops (2 loops, an inner loop and an outer loop) - A natural fit for processing data from a 2 dimensional array, since the data structure is logically similar to a spreadsheet or matrix consisting of rows and columns of storage "cells".
• The Game of Life is a computational phenomenon invented by British mathematician John Conway circa 1970 to show possibilities of population simulations in a mathematically controlled environment. The original computations were not executed on machines, they were performed using marbles on a game board similar to Go. The results of processing were determined using pencil and paper from one generation to the next. Glad we got us some silicon diodes!
• Recently, according to the Wikipedia page on Game of Life, a researcher has carried out a GOL simulation to the 6,366,548,773,467,669,985,195,496,000th (6 octillionth) generation of a Turing machine, computed in less than 30 seconds on an Intel Core Duo 2 GHz CPU.
• The standard Game of Life is symbolized as B3/S23. A cell is Born if it has exactly three neighbors, Survives if it has two or three living neighbors, and dies otherwise.
  • The first number, or list of numbers, is what is required for a dead cell to be born.
  • The second set is the requirement for a live cell to survive to the next generation.