John Horton Conway

Anyone care to comment on John Conway's Game of Life Theory or about Emergence? Is there a good book out there?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Horton_Conway

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence

Love this stuff. I first met John Conway in the summer of 1979 before I started my degree, and he is one of the most inspiring mathematicians I have known. I wrote a 64x44 toroidal version of the Game of Life on my first computer (a Spectrum) some time around 1984, and had some fun with it. At about 1 hz refresh rate, it was a little way short of current state of the art but still interesting. [The best cellular automaton software I have seen is the user friendly, public domain Golly, which runs at mind-boggling speed].

Perhaps the most theoretically significant fact about the Game of Life is that it is possible to represent a Turing machine. This makes the theory of the game essentially the same as the theory of general computers, including its potential to exhibit complexity. My understanding is that (in principle) deterministic digital computers are capable of complexity of the degree as the current state of all life on Earth.

I kind of get Game of Life theory, but where would the initial push come from in real life? What would have started it, God?

Conway looks like modern day Einstein. Why hasn't he won a Nobel Prize yet? Just overlooked?

How about:  Combinatorial game theory

 Could be useful in chess.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combinatorial_game_theory

Nimzoblanca, Conway is a mathematician, and there is no Nobel Prize for mathematics. The Fields Medal is often considered the mathematics equivalent to a Nobel, and strangely enough, Conway did not won a Fields (and is too old now to win one, since 40 is the age limit). It does seem a little surprising that he didn't win it, as he definitely did lots of amazing work well before the age of 40.

The "God Hypothesis" explains nothing. If you say God started it, you've just replaced the question "what caused the universe to come into existence?" with the question "what caused God to come into existence?", and you've accomplished nothing except the mere appearance of answering a question.

Here's a link to WNYC's Radiolab broadcast concerning the principle of emergence.  Enjoy.

http://mediasearch.wnyc.org/m/33903353/emergence.htm?widget=true

God, by definition, is the first thing and has always exsisted. If you don't accept the God premise you are stuck with the idea that an infinite universe, containing intelligent life, has ultiimately sprung out of utter nothingness.  

Yes, there must be a beginning, at least the way we conceive things.  However, there is neither a reason for us to refer to that beginning as God, nor to prescribe to this beginning the traits of a "creator," nor the anthropomorphic traits that are regularly given to such an idea.

So how did this guy win a Nobel Prize?  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Forbes_Nash,_Jr.

Seems like math theories are used in many different fields. John Conway has been overlooked.

I'm using God as a metaphore. I don't necessarily believe in god, but if the Big Bang theory holds, who started that?

Scientists are doing a lot of interesting works these days. They're gettng very close to understanding reality. 'Kind of scary.

Nimzoblanca, he won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences (not actually one of the original Nobels). The prize was for his work in game theory.

Interestingly, there is a physicist who won the Fields Medal: Edward Witten. I believe he's the only one.

I believe Nash won the prize for economics. Incidentally, this was not an original Nobel prize, but one added later with funding from the Swedish central bank. The mathematics that Conway has contributed most to is in some of the most pure branches of mathematics, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to find areas of mathematics that have no applications these days.

Decades ago, friends of mine at college kindly given me the two volumes of "Winning ways", co-authored by Conway, which is a quite accessible but state of the art work on many parts of the theory of combinatorial games. This theory does apply to chess, with a little care about representation, and some of the results of the theory about hot games are relevant. In addition, zugzwang is a concept that is very important in combinatorial game theory . A game which is enlightened to a greater extent by combinatorial game theory is Go, to the extent that academics were able to create example endgames that Go professionals were unable to play as well as them. And professional Go players are very, very good indeed.

Go is far more complicated than chess. There is no good software that can match human masters playing Go.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Go

It also takes us to the whole idea of A.I., another developing field.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence