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Gemini says this pattern has just itself as predecessor on a 16x1 horizontal skew 7 torus

This is true only up to a translation. On a 16x16 torus, the only predecessor of generation 0 of this pattern is generation 7 according to LLS. Have you tried running LLS? It is very helpful to answer this ...

Three automated solutions :
x = 401, y = 211, rule = B3/S23
159bo$160bo$158b3o11$392bo7bo$275bo117bo4b2o$273bobo115b3o5b2o$274b2o$
279bo115bobo$o276b2o116b2o$b2o275b2o116bo$2o383b2o2b2o$4b3o378bo3bobo$
6bo262b2o116bobobo$5bo263bo4bo111b2ob2o$271bobobo111bo$270b2ob2o110bob
o$271bo113b2o9b2o ...

Another torus rle without predecessor von a 19x1 skew 3 torus. Quite likely it has predecessors on the 19x19.
[...]
Those look even more likely to have predecessors

I looked for predecessors of these on a 19x19 grid, but this time I decided to be less lazy and switched to LLS (faster but has no ...

JLS just finished the search for all predecessors of this 17x17 board, and found 1140 of them. Sample predecessor, which less structure but noticeable motifs :
x = 17, y = 17, rule = B3/S23:T17,17
b2o4bo2bob3obo$3o6bo6bo$obob2ob2o3bo3bo$bo4b2o4bo2b2o$4bob2o$2bo2bobob
2ob3obo$o2b2obo4b2o$4bo4bob2o ...

This is just an isolated pattern on the specific torus, but I guess it has only few predecessors on a full board and thus may lead to another still life that is non constructible. Could someone search for an actual predecessor?

Here is a predecessor, found with JLS :
x = 17, y = 17, rule = B3 ...

p38 gun

Amazing discovery! Could you provide more information about how it was found?
Optimizing the p2 catalyst yields a minor population and bounding-box reduction (-4 cells and -2 in length):
x = 55, y = 32, rule = B3/S23
41bo3b2o$40bobobob3o$21b2o17bobobo4bo$22bo2bo15bobobobobo$19b3o3b3o15b ...

I added this useful (known) recipe for skewed snake stacks :
x = 453, y = 29, rule = LifeHistory
296.A$294.A.A$295.2A3$303.A112.A$5.A298.A110.A$3.A.A296.3A103.A6.3A$
4.2A292.2A109.2A$299.2A107.2A$115.A109.A72.A$.A111.A.A56.A53.2A127.2A
55.2A$2.A6.2B2D2B44.2B2D2B49.2A2.2B2D2B49.A3.A3.2B2D2B38.2A127 ...

snake to canoe (is this okay? it affects one cell in the rightmost two columns in the snake->carrier step)
x = 98, y = 107, rule = LifeHistory
15$27.A$25.A.A$26.2A20$82.A$43.A38.A.A$44.A37.2A$42.3A5$44.A$45.A$43.
3A4$42.A.A$43.2A$43.A5$63.2B2D2B$63.2BD3B$63.3BD2B$63.3BACBE$63.3BABC
E23$44.2A$43.A ...

A few recipes gathered over the past two days. The red cross indicates a component that fails in half of cases.
x = 451, y = 1828, rule = LifeHistory
76.A.A$77.2A$77.A4$80.A$72.A8.A$73.2A4.3A.6BCE$72.2A9.5BCBE$83.3B2DCB
$83.2BD3BC$83.2B2DB2C3$79.2A$78.A.A$80.A7.3A$88.A$84.2A3.A$83.A.A$85.
A10$104.A ...

A very nice set of components. Most of them are perfectly valid, but I have a few remarks, which should make some rules clearer for all future contributors:
- watch the forbidden region ! For example, here, the grey and salmon cells should not change throughout the entire component.
x = 52, y = 46 ...

Interesting project! The software you've written looks very nice. It breaks down the process of writing a complex proof into a bunch of little puzzles. To try the software out, I've done a few easy conversions:

Thank you! Nice to see that the program is usable by someone else than me. I have ...

What is the thinnest unconstructible still-life that we can find? This problem is the complementary of the Width-N still-lifes syntheses project . All known small unsynthesisable still-lifes are almost square and have a width of 22, but I found a width-21 stabilisation of the 184 cells ...

This post will serve as a place to monitor the width-5 still-lifes syntheses project.

The latest set of needed transformations is here :
x = 810, y = 680, rule = LifeHistory
2B2D4BC23.2B2D2A2B24.2B2DB2C2B23.2B2DB2D3B22.2B2DB2C2BC22.2B2DB2CB24.
2B2DB2D2B23.2B2DB2DBC23.2B2DB2D2B23.2B2DBDCB24 ...

This thread is dedicated to a new kind of synthesis project that I imagined back in early 2024. The goal is to provide proofs that still-lifes in infinite classes with a complex structure are glider-constructible. To keep things simple, I chose width-N still-lifes, for N as large as we can. I have ...

Huh. How?

You can use the method displayed in the long^N clock syntheses (see the continuous recipe). It would look like this, with a fast component to lay blocks on the ends :
x = 49, y = 199, rule = B3/S23
32b2o$31bobo$31bobobo$32bobobo$34bobo$34b2o13$16bo3bo3bo3bo3b2o$12b2ob ...

muzik wrote: July 8th, 2026, 1:38 pm Are self-forcing p3 agar patches known?

p3 and p4 self-forcing agars were found in January 2025 by 400spartans. The crosspost does not say if a finite self-forcing patch exists for these agars.

NNlk05 wrote: July 8th, 2026, 8:38 am Conjecture: As n tends to infinity, there exists a upper bound of the max density still life smaller then nxn constructible by gliders that is less then the still life density cap 1/2.

Wrong, since arbitrarily large square patches of zebra stripes can be constructed.

Here is an attempt at giving a more formal definition of some problems on general construction vs. glider construction. Define a construction of a pattern A_0 to be a sequence of patterns (A_n) for n >= 0 such that :
- for all positive n , A_n is a predecessor of A_{n-1}
- the patterns (A_n) have ...

How do I set up octohash using this?

At present, you can't unless you want to modify one of the octohash python scripts and match the hashes in the database to the glider strings (or even rebuild the database from scratch), but it would require to use python Shinjuku (actually, small parts of it ...

Given the recent cottonmouth success has anyone tried finding a recipe to add one fireship next to an existing one such that we could get a recipe for the three-fireships-pulling-a-beehive 2c/20o tagalong...


Unfortunately, the copperhead front synthesis uses a large amount of lateral space ...

A p18 B/R hassler in 98G, down from 106G:

The blocks can be inserted in 4G instead of 7G.
x = 191, y = 75, rule = B3/S23
obo$b2o$bo7$141bo$142b2o$141b2o8$46bo$44b2o$45b2o4$167bobo$167b2o$20b
2o125b2o19bo$21bo126bo$19bo126bo$15b2obob4o118b2obob4o$15bob2obo2bo
118bob2obo2bo2$42b2o125b2o ...

I would like to request the trusted flag on LifeWiki to add my search results to the Spaceship Search Status Page.

LSSS has some bugs and is not trustworthy for negative results (see https://conwaylife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=117823#p117823 ). Sokwe maintains a list specifically for LSSS ...

I could not find a version of the latest database in sjk format, so I made one from dvgrn's "3G-collisions-tested-and-rewound-16-ticks.txt". There were no duplicates, and the resulting file is less than 10MB uncompressed.

A variant of a known component solves one of the two remaining 37-cells c/3 spaceships in 46G.
x = 130, y = 147, rule = LifeHistory
127.A.A$127.2A$128.A9$A$.2A$2A111.A$7.A.A101.2A$8.2A102.2A$8.A98.A$
107.A.A$22.A84.2A$23.2A$22.2A$2.A$3.2A$2.2A18$96.A$81.A13.A$17.C.C59.
2A14.3A$18.2C4.A.A53.2A$18.C6 ...

I am trying to make an octohash encoder for lifelib, but I am struggling with Golly's cell lists. Before taking the hash, I have to sort the list the same way as the output of "g.getcells". However, the order of cells returned by "g.getcells" does not seem to be lexicographical, and is unspecified ...