Archive for October, 2009
Nostalgic for those summertime trips to the beach?
Do you remember those hot summer road trips in the back of the car to visit the beach?
On the way home the family would stop for dinner at a diner. The diner would have a glass case under the register full of trinkets and games.
Among the games would be a 14-15 slider puzzle.
The 14-15 puzzle was one of the first puzzle crazes to hit America. It was released in the 1800s and everyone was doing it then and we’re still doing it a century later.
Did you know the first batch of these puzzles shipped from the factory with all the numbers in order except the 14 and 15 were switched. The puzzle is impossible to solve from this position.
You won’t have to worry about that on your iPhone, just hit jumble and start a fresh game.
4 PUZZLES IN ONE
- Put the 15 numbers in sequential order
- Form a Magic Square totaling 30 in each direction-
Put together an ocean scene
- Put together a frigate bird
FEATURES
- Solve button so you can see the finished product
- Jumble button to start a fresh game
The 14-15 puzzle can be as simple as putting the numbers in order or as complex as forming magic squares. You pick your level. You keep your mind sharp.
Skynet had to start somewhere
In the 1940s John Conway tried to create a machine that could replicate itself. The Game of Life is how he did it.
Conway’s Game of Life is a two dimensional universe in which each single celled organism interacts with its
neighbors according to the following rules:
1. Any live cell with fewer than two live neighbours dies, as if caused by underpopulation.
2. Any live cell with more than three live neighbours dies, as if by overcrowding.
3. Any live cell with two or three live neighbours lives on to the next generation.
4. Any dead cell with exactly three live neighbours becomes a live cell.
The initial pattern determines the outcome.
The was the beginning of cellular automata and led to single celled computer creatures in a world that could self-organize and behave in ways that weren’t programmed into them.
FEATURES
- Four different sets of rules for you to watch
- Original Conway’s Life 23/3
- Amoeba 1358/357 Rule ( forms random amoebas )
- Mazectric 1234/3 Rule ( forms mazes )
- Move 245/368 Rule (occasionally forms starships )
- Freeze the animation, let it run, or step through it a step at a time.
- One touch resets the board to a random configuration.
