This is a very fun "game" (I use quotes due to lack of winners/goals/tasks, it is a pure simulation), and I have programmed it on many occasions for classes/fun. Hours can pass in an instant just watching for repeating patterns, ships, and pretty animations.

I think I played this game on DOS.

You can play around with an online version here:
http://www.bitstorm.org/gameoflife/

Where's the thing moving at 30c? I see nothing that, unlinked, moves 30 cells per time unit. I do see some things that disappear down to a few cells which reform in the same shape elsewhere, is that what they're talking about? If so, this came close to ruining the entire video for me. That ain't scientific.

Anyone else?

Ya, the 'faster than light' bit at the end was a bit unclear, but they didn't say it traveled at 30c, they said it traveled at 30/28c i.e. 1.0714285714285714285714285714286 times 'the speed of light'. This means a pattern in the game can travel slightly faster than one square per 'turn' which is otherwise 'the speed limit'.

If you stared at this really closely you would probably find that when the "ship" passed through the "Stargate", it jumped 2 extra squares, and so on average the "ship" traveled 30 squares in 28 time steps. V = Dist/Time so 30 squares / 28 time steps = 30/28c where c = 1square/time step. But I didn't state at it long enough to check.

To me, the 'Primer' example was the coolest. It's certainly surprising to see prime numbers pop out of two simple rules.

I wonder what would happen if a hexagonal grid was used instead. *Asks Google*

Oh, someone thought of that... check it out:

http://www.cse.sc.edu/~bays/h6h6h6/

Select the 'pattern' button and checkout what's been found. My favorite: Supernova

Oh i see, strange of them to express it so ambiguously. It looked like '30 or 28' to me.

However i still find it unscientific. I don't see any instance where information teleports itself more than 1 square. If information 'dies' and then further along the line new information is created which forms a similar pattern to earlier, is it really breaking the light barrier? For all we know in a system so simple, a goat dies in australia and a goat is born in england at the same instant so we say that a goat has broken the light barrier.

This calls into question their spaceships too. Because the ones that i was allowed to create in the web program spun (ie. the pattern after 1 step was inverted, then mirrored, then inverted again, then mirrored again, so the pattern had a 4 time unit cycle, during which time it wasn't the same shape). You can't claim that it's moving in a case like this.

If for one second i take it wholly out of context and look at a stargate, it's as though we put a chicken in a stargate and a chicken came out the other end. Until we can establish that it's the same chicken, for all we know if we put a cat in one end, a dog might come out the other. Does that help to illustrate my cynicism? If we put a certain pattern in and see the same pattern later, all we can say is that one pattern gives rise to the same pattern later on. It could be coincidence.

In fact, if i had the time, i could probably create a pattern which split off into bits. Then, if ANY pattern disappears and i see the pattern reappear elsewhere, i can claim that i have broken the light barrier. See what i mean?

Having said that, i still can't identify what you're talking about in the final section of video, so i'm still left guessing at what's taking place.

Edit:
After having looked at this - i suppose this also raises a philosophical question about reality as we see it - if i move a chess piece from one point to another, is it the same chess piece or a copy? If time in reality was cut down into strips like in the 'game', and if space was cut down into blocks as in the 'game', i could say that the chess piece is not the same chess piece. So now imagine that the time units and blocks were infinitesimally small, how do i know that the chess piece is the same after every fraction of space and time i move it through?

Of course the answer is "That's what their rules state." Because they define the 'universe' (of blocks), they give me the opportunity to question their theories. Our universe isn't defined in rules and so we must make our own, and some things we take for granted. In a defined universe of our creating such as this, we must deal in certainties, surely?

^ If anyone reads and keeps up with that then i really appreciate your time & effort.

I don't fully understand this game, but one thing I do understand about it is, this game will change the world.

Back in the early days of emergent behavior and cellular automata (Gödel, Escher, Bach) there was talk of applying these ideas to npcs in role playing games - apply a few very simple rules to a few very simple personality traits to produce rich unpredictable interactions that ebb and flow across the game world.

No one seems to be working on this any more.