A personal research journal
Engaging curiosity.
Making ideas work.
I’m Michael Simkin, an independent researcher based in Tbilisi, Georgia. Research is both my profession and my hobby; my focus shifts over time.
Curiosity, experimentation, and engineering: building tools, testing ideas, and getting results. This site brings together my research in AI, mathematics, and cellular automata, alongside my science-fiction writing.
Conway’s Game of LifeB3 / S23
Generation
Simkin Glider Gun29 cells · period 120 · discovered 2015
A few cells. An endless stream of gliders. Read the story ↗
01 / Explore
Explore the work.
Different interests. Connected ideas.
Choose a starting point.
02 / 5 articles
CA Research
Self-construction, growth, spaceships in other rules, and neural CA experiments.
03 / 16 articles
Conway’s Game of Life
Simple rules, engineered spaceships, and computational discovery.
04 / 2 articles
Cryptography & Implementation
Digital signatures and experiments with physical cryptographic objects.
05 / 2 articles
Chess
Chess as a hobby, GPU evaluation in Deep-Formix, and Chess960×960 positions with an engine evaluator.
06 / 11 articles
Engineering & Computing
Physical computation, simulations, search tools, and software experiments.
02 / Writing
My science fiction.
Science fiction has been my favourite genre for years. I’m interested in the individual’s relationship with society and technology, and how deeply social norms shape our everyday expectations. My book, Echos of Tomorrow, explores these concerns through seven connected stories about digital minds, identity, and rights.
03 / The journal
Recent articles.
Research, projects, and experiments
in one growing collection.
All topics30 articles
ResearchExperiment
Conway’s Life in 3D Tiles
Make a Life generation by assembling coloured pieces: six blue, eight orange, eight purple, and four black/white tile types, with illustrated inputs, outputs, and a compact 3D tile set.
ResearchDemonstrated result
Caterloopillar
How readers, glider routing, close-spaced inserters, and deletion come together in the 2016 Pattern of the Year.
ProjectImplemented
LifeAPI
Optimized 64×64, bit-packed Game of Life evolution, with the operations needed for combinatorial searches.
ResearchDemonstrated result
Remini
Modern self-construction from retro Life circuitry: how new understanding made an old toolkit do much more.
ResearchDemonstrated result
Switch engine ping-pong
A spaceship-and-glider exchange between two switch engines, with a 23-cell record that stood for over seven years.
ProjectImplemented
Deep-Formix
A custom deep, narrow evaluation network, NNUE-style updates, and a working GPU chess search—developed while stress-testing Gemini.
ResearchResearch preprint
High-Dimensional Sphere Packing
From a simple question and an AI-directed search to a collaborative preprint on lattice packing in every sufficiently large dimension.
ResearchDemonstrated result
Serizawa Geminoid
One of my first construction results: a smaller, more efficient Geminoid design in Serizawa, following my interest in Andrew Wade’s Gemini.
ResearchDemonstrated result
Geminoid Particles
A custom nine-state cellular automaton for exploring construction and self-destruction.
ProjectExperiment
Neural CA MNIST
A hand-drawn digit is the input; 50 local neural updates produce the evolving images shown in the animation.
ResearchDemonstrated result
Serizawa quadratic growth
Five-cell and later four-cell seeds with quadratic growth, posted in June 2014.
ResearchDemonstrated result
The c/3 spaceship in Live Free or Die
A prize-winning period-six spaceship at a previously undiscovered speed in B2/S0.
ResearchDemonstrated result
B60
A three-block Herschel conduit found with CatForce, forming the basis of the Simkin gun.
ResearchDemonstrated result
BNE14T30
Tanner Jacobi’s edge shooter, developed from a Bellman result I found earlier in 2015.
ResearchDemonstrated result
BRx46B
A 46-generation conduit that carries a B-heptomino directly to another B-heptomino.
ProjectImplemented
CatForce
Brute-force catalyst searches that test recovery without prescribing the interaction.
ProjectExperiment
CryptoCash
An NFC bearer-token proposal, explored through AES circuits and witness-generation experiments.
ProjectExperiment
CryptoHanko
An Android digital stamp: sign QR data with a device-held key and verify the resulting bundle.
ResearchDemonstrated result
Making Still-Life Tiles Physical
Printable puzzle pieces whose connections encode Life’s stability constraints, developed with Paul Callahan and Adam Goucher.
ProjectImplemented
Mandelbrot CUDA
Deep fractal exploration using adjustable fixed-point precision on CUDA and WebGPU.
ProjectExperiment
Multilayer Mutilated Gear
A simulation of layered, selectively toothed gears as a representation of logic.
ResearchDemonstrated result
Ocellus
A period-114 relay oscillator built around a reduced 180-degree reflector.
ProjectImplemented
QR Wi-Fi Scanner
A small desktop utility that reads a Wi-Fi sharing QR code and copies its password.
ResearchDemonstrated result
Simkin Glider Gun
The 29-cell gun: the smallest known by live-cell population when two glider output streams are allowed.
ResearchDemonstrated result
Simkin's p60
A period-60 oscillator formed from two B60 conduits with glider-suppressing eaters.
ProjectExperiment
TQRNG Webcam
An experiment extracting bits from webcam pixel noise, with partial validation of its physical model.
ResearchResearch note
Convex hulls with limited working memory
Batched bridge searches for read-only point sets: a current manuscript developing a methodology I recall working on around 2009.
ProjectImplemented
Chess960x960
Explore asymmetric Fischer Random positions with Stockfish evaluation in the browser.
ResearchDemonstrated result
24-cell quadratic growth
A 24-cell breeder discovered between the 25-cell seed and switch engine ping-pong.
ResearchDemonstrated result
25-cell quadratic growth
The first of three progressively smaller quadratic-growth seeds I found in October 2014.
Building is part of the research.
I explore ideas by building tools and constructions, running experiments, and working toward results—from glider-gun searches to GPU chess and mathematical proofs.