Gosper’s Glider
When John Conway originally created his game of life, one of his early beliefs was that no pattern could ever grow un-bounded – that is, that every pattern was finite. In 1970, Conway offered $50 to the first person who could prove or dis-prove this belief.
Bill Gosper took this prize less than a year later by creating Gosper’s Glider Gun, which dis-proves the theory on grounds that the Glider Gun creates an infinite series of Gliders. Each glider promptly leaves the area, making room for more gliders. As such, the pattern is not finite, and Conway’s theorem is false.
This is, essentially, the “bullet” to the gun. The Glider Gun is the more interesting pattern, by far.
