Thread for basic questions

[Sokwe]

What is the smallest t-pentomino or t-tetromino factory?

Probably Eureka with a tub removed:

Code: Select all

#C [[ STOP 30 ]]
x = 15, y = 18, rule = B3/S23
11bo$10bobo$11bo4$12bo$2o11b2o$4bo5bo$4bo5bo$3b3o3b3o5$3bo7bo$2bobo5bo
bo$3bo7bo!

[Mathemagician314]

Are there any 5-cell honey farm predecessors?

[squareroot12621]

Are there any 5-cell honey farm predecessors?

There are tens of six-cell patterns that form a clean honey farm, but none with five.

[confocaloid]

The wiki might be wrong; it does not currently provide any references for that claim.

[hotdogPi]

When in doubt, check Lifeline Volume 4. There are no 5-cell predecessors of a honey farm.

[Clara]

What is the simplest software to code Life on for someone with little coding experience - currently using JavaScript but maybe there’s a better alternative?

[Clara]

What is the range of patterns etc that can be constructed by means of glider synthesis?

[hkoenig]

I would stick with Golly unless you are doing something that requires a custom implementation. Otherwise, pick a language you want to learn and start here for some advice on what to do next.

[muzik]

A period-3 phoenix (i.e. strictly volatile period-3 oscillator where every cell is only one for one period) cannot exist, but can a strictly-volatile period-3 oscillator where every cell is on for two generations exist?

[Timelord Missionary]

Not to diss on the post above by not answering it, but all of these discoveries about 2c/3 wires have gotten me thinking: (I might be using the wrong terminology but oh well)

is it presently possible to turn a 5c/9 wick into a thumb or pipsquirter spark?

And Is it theoretically possible to turn a 5c/9 wick into a 2c/3 wick? Have people tried to search in this area and come up dry?

[confocaloid]

(I might be using the wrong terminology but oh well)

Speaking of terminology, it's technically correct to describe the 2c/3 wire and the 5c/9 wire as wicks (both of them are). However, that doesn't tell the whole story, and that doesn't explain why people would want to do things you are asking about, and hence that does not tell the truth.
A wire is a wick with a special property: it must be possible to send a moving perturbation along the wick so that the wick is restored unchanged into its original location and phase after the perturbation. This is what makes it interesting to attempt things you are asking about.

[Timelord Missionary]

A wire is a wick with a special property: it must be possible to send a moving perturbation along the wick so that the wick is restored unchanged into its original location and phase after the perturbation. This is what makes it interesting to attempt things you are asking about.

Yeah that’s what I meant

[b-engine]

If we have the synthesis of the 17^^3 tick diehard, then we can make the largest spaceship ever by making a "puffer" that puffs it. Are that type of spaceships considered trivial?

[confocaloid]

If we have the synthesis of the 17^^3 tick diehard, then we can make the largest spaceship ever by making a "puffer" that puffs it. Are that type of spaceships considered trivial?

I think constructing a spaceship of this kind could be an interesting "challenge", especially if it would be possible to run the pattern for a complete cycle in Golly. It is certainly possible to build a puffer/rake for any kind of glider-constructible non-growing object (including glider-constructible diehards), but it's not completely clear how to make a reasonably cheaply glider constructible N^^3 diehard puffer runnable in Golly with Hashlife.

[confocaloid]

[... removed ...]

According to gliderdb-searcher, the following spaceships / spaceship speeds are known:

[... removed ...]

Code: Select all

#C (0, 1)/5
#C Discovered by: Rocknlol, 2020
#C Min Rule: B35/S015
#C Max Rule: B358/S0158
x = 13, y = 39, rule = B35/S015
b2o3bo3b2o$2b2obobob2o$3b3ob3o$4bo3bo$5bobo$3bo5bo$2bo7bo$2bo7bo$2o4bo4b2o$b4o3b4o$4bo3bo$obobo3bobob
o$4bo3bo$2bobo3bobo$2bo3bo3bo$2b2ob3ob2o2$4b5o$4bobobo$2o9b2o$b3obobob3o$b2o7b2o$obo2bobo2bobo$2b3o3
b3o$3bo5bo2$3bo5bo$5bobo$5b3o2$3bobobobo$2bo7bo2$bo2b5o2bo$2bo3bo3bo$5bobo$5b3o$bo3b3o3bo$3bo5bo!

[... removed ...]

The pattern snippet quoted above displays "Show pattern error" above it.
Trying to open it in Golly via Ctrl+O shows "File could not be loaded by any algorithm.":

Code: Select all

File could not be loaded by any algorithm.

Error from QuickLife:
Illegal whitespace after count

Error from HashLife:
Illegal whitespace after count

Error from Generations:
Rule must contain two slashes.

Error from Larger than Life:
could not find R

Error from JvN:
This algorithm only supports these rules:
JvN29, Nobili32, Hutton32.

Error from Super:
Missing Super, History or Investigator postfix.

Error from RuleLoader:
File not found
Given rule: B35/S015

Trying to open it with an older version of safeopenclip.lua shows:

Code: Select all

File could not be loaded by any algorithm.

Error from QuickLife:
Bad character found.

Error from HashLife:
Bad character found.

Error from Generations:
Bad character found.

Error from Larger than Life:
could not find R

Error from JvN:
This algorithm only supports these rules:
JvN29, Nobili32, Hutton32.

Error from Super:
Missing Super, History or Investigator postfix.

Error from RuleLoader:
Leading zero in count

and the pattern comments become this: (there is no actual pattern shown)

Code: Select all

#C (0, 1)/5
#C Discovered by: Rocknlol, 2020
#C Min Rule: B35/S015
#C Ma#C Golly converted unsupported rule: B35/S015

All three attempts consistently tell that the pattern snippet is somehow broken, but I cannot see how/why the snippet is broken. Visually it seems to be valid RLE with pattern comments.

What causes the problem here?

[rowett]

All three attempts consistently tell that the pattern snippet is somehow broken, but I cannot see how/why the snippet is broken. Visually it seems to be valid RLE with pattern comments.

What causes the problem here?

It is not valid to have whitespace between a count and symbol in RLE (e.g. 3b).
The error is on the second row of the pattern data which ends "...$2b3o3". If you move the 3 to the start of the next line it's valid:

Code: Select all

#C (0, 1)/5
#C Discovered by: Rocknlol, 2020
#C Min Rule: B35/S015
#C Max Rule: B358/S0158
x = 13, y = 39, rule = B35/S015
b2o3bo3b2o$2b2obobob2o$3b3ob3o$4bo3bo$5bobo$3bo5bo$2bo7bo$2bo7bo$2o4bo4b2o$b4o3b4o$4bo3bo$obobo3bobob
o$4bo3bo$2bobo3bobo$2bo3bo3bo$2b2ob3ob2o2$4b5o$4bobobo$2o9b2o$b3obobob3o$b2o7b2o$obo2bobo2bobo$2b3o
3b3o$3bo5bo2$3bo5bo$5bobo$5b3o2$3bobobobo$2bo7bo2$bo2b5o2bo$2bo3bo3bo$5bobo$5b3o$bo3b3o3bo$3bo5bo!

Looking at the code to gliderdb-searcher it is just adding a new line to RLE every 100 characters. This should be modified to prevent it accidentally breaking count and symbol pairs.

[Haycat2009]

How large would an unnamed (34,7)c/156 spaceship made out of OEOP metacells be? Just curious.

[Haycat2009]

What is the simplest software to code Life on for someone with little coding experience - currently using JavaScript but maybe there’s a better alternative?

Scratch is the simplest - but Turbowarp can compile it to increase speed.

What is the range of patterns etc that can be constructed by means of glider synthesis?

Almost all, but Gardens of Eden or solutions to the extended grandfather problem.

[confocaloid]

How large would an unnamed (34,7)c/156 spaceship made out of OEOP metacells be? Just curious.

Wouldn't that be the dimensions of that unnamed spaceship multiplied by the dimensions of one zero-encoded-by-zero-population metacell?

[dvgrn]

What is the range of patterns etc that can be constructed by means of glider synthesis?

Almost all, but Gardens of Eden or solutions to the grandfather problem.

Clarification: That "almost all" answer doesn't give the right impression, for four reasons.

One, almost all sufficiently-large random patterns contain a Garden of Eden. So among random patterns, glider-constructible patterns are a vanishingly small subset.

Two, there are other very large classes of patterns where it's not known whether they have a glider synthesis -- they might, but we don't know for sure. This includes most large spaceships (like Sir Robin, seal, walrus, etc., etc.) and many sufficiently dense large still lifes.

Three, there are classes of patterns that are known not to have a glider synthesis -- like https://conwaylife.com/wiki/Unsynthesizable_oscillator_1 and the various known Unconstructible still lifes.

Fourth, and this one is the most picky-technical of the lot: solutions to the grandparent problem (patterns with a parent but no grandparent) aren't the only non-glider-constructible patterns in that general category. There are patterns that have a great^N-grandparent but no great^(N+1) grandparent, for any N you might want to choose.

[dvgrn]

How large would an unnamed (34,7)c/156 spaceship made out of OEOP metacells be? Just curious.

Wouldn't that be the dimensions of that unnamed spaceship multiplied by the dimensions of one zero-encoded-by-zero-population metacell?

I think that would be, in some phases, 2093884899025 x 1649127980753

(7987536*262144 + 261841 × 6290923*262144 + 261841 -- reduced by three hundred and some cells at the edges).

[TYCF]

What is the most common period 4 rotor in natural oscillators?

[confocaloid]

What is the most common period 4 rotor in natural oscillators?

Wouldn't that be the rotor of the mold? Looking at the tabulation https://catagolue.hatsya.com/census/b3s23/C1/xp4
The mold by itself has 93 419 376 occurrences.
The mazing (2nd) has 17 795 020 occurrences.

[b-engine]

Is there any totalistic rule with common spaceships?

I've also thought about reversing something in totalistic rules…so I've made anti-totalistic rules, which is basically totalistic rules, but the center cell is inverted before checking neighborhood count.
The anti-totalistic rulestring 4 is equivalent to OTCA rulestring B3/S4.

Code: Select all

x = 44, y = 13, rule = B3/S4History
3F$2.F7.3F3.3B3.3F3.ABA$3F8.F4.ACA9.ADB$2.F8.F4.3B3.3F3.3B$3F32.F$35.
2F4.3B$33.5F3.BCB$35.2F4.3B$3F32.F$2.F3.3F.3F3.BAB3.3F3.ABA$3F3.3F2.F
4.ADA9.ACA$2.F3.F.F2.F4.3B3.3F3.3B$3F!

So can any spaceship occur in these rules (excluding B2)?
EDIT: Changed rulestring 3 to 4 as confocaloid pointed out.

[confocaloid]

Something is wrong either with this definition of your suggested class of CA, or something is wrong with the given example, or both.

• When checking birth, the middle cell is dead, so you invert it before counting alive cells in the neighbourhood. Then for "3" you need two alive cells (neither of which is the middle cell) for birth.
• When checking survival, the middle cell is alive, so you invert it before counting alive cells in the neighbourhood. Then for "3" you need three alive cells (not counting the middle cell) for survival.

That means "3" would have rulestring B2/S3 in the usual notation for Life-like cellular automata. Which is different from the claimed B3/S4 in your example.

#added

So can any spaceship occur in these rules (excluding B2)?

Here are two spaceships in B34/S45, copied from GliderDB Reader:

Code: Select all

#C (0, 1)c/5
#C Min Rule: B34/S45
#C Max Rule: B348/S458
x = 16, y = 22, rule = B34/S45
7b2o$2b5o2b5o$6b4o$2bob2o4b2obo$6b4o$2b3o2b2o2b3o2$2bo10bo$4b8o$3b3o4b3o
$6b4o$4b8o$7b2o$7b2o$5bob2obo$3b2o6b2o2$4b8o$4obo4bob4o$b2o2b6o2b2o2$4b
8o!

Code: Select all

#C (0, 1)c/7
#C Min Rule: B34/S45
#C Max Rule: B348/S45
x = 10, y = 36, rule = B34/S45
4b2o$2bo4bo$4b2o$b2o4b2o$2b6o$4b2o3$3b4o2$bo6bo2$bob4obo2$b2o4b2o$2bo4b
o$2bob2obo$2b2o2b2o$4b2o$bobo2bobo$2bo4bo$b8o$bo2b2o2bo$2o6b2o$bo6bo$b
2o4b2o$3bo2bo$2b6o$2bob2obo$2bo4bo$2bob2obo$3o4b3o$bobo2bobo$b2o4b2o$2b
2o2b2o$2b6o!