[hx2a]

Can someone tell me more about how the predefined Game of Life patterns came to be? It it fascinating to me that these have names that people remember. I know this subject is well researched, but are the researchers finding these things randomly or is there some kind of analytical approach to design patterns that are likely to have a desired result?

[OscarCunningham]

The earliest patterns were found by simply doodling on the Life board and seeing what happened. Then programs like lifesrc (https://www.conwaylife.com/wiki/Lifesrc) were used to bruteforce patterns with specified properties. There are also 'soup searches' in which trillions of random starting conditions are evolved to see what emerges (https://catagolue.hatsya.com/home). Finally, patterns found in these ways can be combined to engineer more complex patterns, including computers.