Glider
Named by 2 essays across one field — each of them below, with the objects they name alongside it.
The rule that computes
One of the 256 elementary rules can run any program. Not simulate one, not approximate one — a machine that can compute anything computable, built from a lookup table with eight rows and nothing else.
The ash a random soup leaves
Fill a grid at random, apply Conway's rule — three neighbours give birth, two or three keep a cell alive — and the population collapses from half the cells to about three in a hundred, leaving scattered blocks and blinkers. Five cells in the shape of an R take 1,103 generations to do the same and peak at 319 on the way. The Game of Life is a universal computer, so nothing short of running it can say when a pattern will settle, and the figures run it.
Named alongside it
The objects these essays reach for when they reach for this one.
Cellular automatonUndecidabilityComputationGame of lifeHalting problemIterationLocalityMean fieldRule 110SimulationTorusUniversality