Boning Li
The aim of this project is to implement a Universal Turing Machine (UTM) in a Cellular Automaton called The Game of Life. The Turing Machine is a powerful model of computation which is capable of doing anything that a general computer can do. More precisely, a Turing Machine can be used to simulate any existing algorithm. Through this project, I can get a better understanding of the theory of computation which provides the basic, fundamental concepts that permeate the whole field of computer science. By investigating this, we can develop more advanced models for understanding the nature of the Church-Turing thesis.
In this presentation, we will demonstrate an implementation of the Game of Life in both Java and Golly. The latter is a free and publicly available software platform that provides a set of Python libraries for the simulation of emergent computations. Such a platform serves as a tool for the implementation of a UTM in the Game of Life. For this, we have implemented a pattern called glider collision, and we have successfully constructed two logic gates with it.