Conway's Game of Life is a simulation of cellular life.
Imagine a cell represented as a square or pixel on a grid, and further imagine that the cell has eight potential neighbors surrounding it.
There are three rules by which the cell dies/disappears, or reproduces in an adjacent cell:
1. Any live cell with two or three live neighbors survives.
2. Any dead cell with three live neighbors becomes a live cell.
3. All other live cells die in the next generation. Similarly, all other dead cells stay dead.
From these simple rules, incredibly complex arrays of cell colonies emerge over multiple generations, from stable, static colonies, to kinetic ones, to ones which die out completely. People have modeled simple mathematical calculators using cells populated just-so. The complexity which emerges from this half-century old program/game is thought-provoking and compelling to this day.
There are free implementations of Conway's Game of Life for nearly every platform in existence - almost certainly there is at least one for the device you are reading this on. I urge you to seek one out.
The lead character in the movie begins to notice unexpectedly complex patterns emerging from similar simple algorithms he uses to create visual displays for a techno band.
He begins to wonder how his simple algorithms are generating unexpected complexity.
He becomes fixated on the idea that the universe itself may simply be a gazillion-generations old simulation based on equally simplistic rules - a kind of algorithmic grand unification theory. His fixation leads to obsession.
The people around him think he is nuts.
And that's the basis of the story in Digital Physics.
There's a psychedelic sequence in this that is one for the ages.
Computer nerds, physics nerds, retrocomputing nerds, math nerds, psychonauts, and nerds generally, ought to appreciate this clever, delightful little film.
I guarantee it is probably smarter than whatever you watched last.
And hey, a barely-disguised 80's era fish tank Mac is at the center of the action. And who doesn't dig that?
I enjoyed this quite a bit. What a pleasant surprise!
