The “Persian rugs” cellular automaton
The life-like cellular automaton B234/S is known as “Persian rugs” or “Serviettes” because of the beautiful patterns it creates when the initial seed is a small, symmetric figure. Below, this automaton is run for 99 generations on a 200×200 grid with a central 2×2 square as the initial state. A family of lovely carpets of increasing size is obtained.
Among these patterns, some personal favourites are the following:
Generation 70:
Generation 73:
Generation 80:
Generation 97: