User:Rok4

Duke University

Pratt School of Engineering

Biomedical Engineering

[1], National Academy of Engineering, updated 2012, accessed 9 September 2012 (Reverse-Engineer the Brain)

The Game of Life Demo was very interesting not simply because it looked cool, but because the demonstration showcased the numerous potential applications of the MATLAB program. John Conway created an intriguing simulation using "sparse matrices" that depicted the survival and death of cells in a universe. This program demonstrates the random aspects of life - such as which cells survived - and also portrays the growth of communities. The most interesting piece of this demonstration, however, is its potential application to the sciences. If one could edit this demonstration to incorporate different factors (making the program more advanced yet more useful), then one could potentially use it to predict the evolution of cells, communities, and perhaps even species. By running the program again and again, scientists could gain a better understanding of how life developed on this planet.