I read this in a book about maths and biology called "Games of Life" and I was amazed that this had never come up despite reading and playing with the game quit

I read this in a book about maths and biology called "Games of Life" and I was amazed that this had never come up despite reading and playing with the game quite a lot. Very cool. The actual implementation of the machine would run so slow that it is infeasible to do anything with it, but just the possibility is mind-boggling.