Cellular automata were first studied in the mid-1950s by Stanislaw Ulam and John von Neumann. The subject became much more widely known in 1970 when Life was described by Martin Gardner in his Scientific American column.
Life is played on an arbitrary-sized grid of square cells.
Even though the rules for Life are completely deterministic, it is impossible to predict whether an arbitrary starting pattern will die out, or start oscillating, or fill the grid. Life and other CAs provide a powerful demonstration of how a very simple system can generate extremely complicated behaviour. Automatic growth of grid size if a pattern gets too big. Automatic detection and deletion of isolated gliders. Automatic detection of oscillating patterns.