I underestimated a CS puzzle...again. (Backwards Conway's Game of Life)

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Welcome back, and I hope you enjoy this mess of a three-year project… It turns out backing up in a cellular automaton can be an insanely difficult problem. This started as a "play button" project, but turned into an obsession. I recently came to the conclusion that there's no long-term winning this game (it has been shown to be NP hard, so I don't feel that bad) but AGH it should be easier than it is! Join me in this video as I dive through the much fabled Game of Life, take a hike through a very strange space, and organize a dinner party. It's going to be a great time.

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Chapters: 0:00 Conway's Game of Life 3:04 Playing GoL in reverse is hard 6:56 How to think in more dimensions 15:55 Drawing maps (both real and configurational) 19:33 The failure of gradient ascent 23:16 SAT solvers (dark CS magic) 28:54 Rephrasing the question and getting results 34:22 Brilliant.org ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8pjrVbdafY