Hj. Blok et B. Bergersen, EFFECT OF BOUNDARY-CONDITIONS ON SCALING IN THE GAME OF LIFE, Physical review. E, Statistical physics, plasmas, fluids, and related interdisciplinary topics, 55(5), 1997, pp. 6249-6252
The debate as to whether the ''game of Life'' is self-organized critic
al remains unresolved. We present evidence that boundary conditions pl
ay an important role in the scaling behavior, resulting in apparently
contradictory results. We develop an analytic form for the scaling fun
ction, and demonstrate that periodic boundaries force saturation, whil
e open boundaries exhibit no such transitions on similar scales. We al
so consider the removal of boundaries altogether.