Getting Something for Nothing
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Gliders can come from very humble beginnings. Start with two squares side-by-side: just a few steps later you have two gliders. Click Step a few times and see. Now click Start. The gliders keep multiplying. From two gliders you get four. From four gliders you get eight. But eventually you get a mess. The objects in the Seeds world are not very stable. You can click Setup to start over with the original pattern. |
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Recall the simple rules for the Seeds world. The rules involve squares counting their neighbors. They say nothing about glider births, glider motion, or glider death. But from a few simple rules, a world full of objects and patterns emerges. Low-level rules give rise to gliders which give rise to patterns of motion. Go to the previous page or the next page or the contents page. Mitchel Resnick and Brian Silverman Epistemology and Learning Group MIT Media Laboratory Last modified: 2/4/96 |