"Cellular Automata, of which Life is an example, were
suggested by Stanislaw Ulam in the 1940s, and first
formalized by von Neumann. Conway's 'Game of Life'
was popularized in Martin Gardner's mathematical
games column in the October 1970 and February 1971
issues of Scientific American."
-- Mark Kantrowitz, "Answers to Frequently Asked
Questions about Artificial Intelligence",
comp.ai, January, 1996,
ftp.cs.cmu.edu:/user/ai/pubs/faqs/ai/ai_?.faq,
mkant+ai-faq@cs.cmu.edu