dumb questions that will probably never get answered (at least here)

[confocaloid]

10. Is 3-state OT having same possibilities as 2-state INT? I'm now focusing on 3-state OTCA.

In one obvious sense, "3-state outer-totalistic" and "2-state isotropic" are two entirely different rulespaces, and hence they give different possibilities.
In another sense...

The full set of possibilities (range-1 Moore neighbourhood, three cellstates, outer totalistic rules):

• the middle cell can be in one of three states (factor 3)
• there are 45 distinguishable possibilities for the bag of neighbour cell states (factor 45):

  Code: Select all

  00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08
  10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
  20 21 22 23 24 25 26
  30 31 32 33 34 35
  40 41 42 43 44
  50 51 52 53
  60 61 62
  70 71
  80

  (the first digit = the number of state-1 neighbours, second digit = the number of state-2 neighbours)
• for each of 3 x 45 = 135 distinguishable 3x3 conditions, one can separately choose the future state of the middle cell (out of 3 possibilities).

Hence there are 3^135 = 25785133671514281396116148947909178321838248752307264505595053707 different cellular automata in this rulespace.
In comparison, "only" 2^102 = 5070602400912917605986812821504 different cellular automata can be described using Hensel notation.

If 3^135 seems too many, one could consider smaller 3-state rulespaces.
For example, make the three transitions 0 -> 2, 1 -> 1, 2 -> 1 forbidden. Then "only" 2^135 = 43556142965880123323311949751266331066368 CA can be defined (where state 1 can be intuitively understood as "newborn cell" and state 2 can be intuitively understood as "old cell").

Further, arrange things so that a cell "knows" its own current state (0, 1, 2), but a cell cannot distinguish state-1 neighbours from state-2 neighbours. (Every cell knows that it is 3-state, but sees the neighbourhood as 2-state.) Then only 2^27 = 134217728 different cellular automata can be defined. (You can apply different survival conditions to "newborn" and "old" cells, but otherwise it's analogous to Life-like cellular automata.)

There are many other possibilities for choosing a sub-rulespace within 3-state R1 Moore OT.

[Haycat2009]

11. What's the most chaotic non-explosive rule? (This means that soups last extremely long and apgsearch will do poorly on those rules)

B3/S237e, B3/S235e and B3/S234z in descending order. I could not find anything further from Conway Life, but to be fair I checked using 100x100 - 50x50 soups.

10. Is 3-state OT having same possibilities as 2-state INT? I'm now focusing on 3-state OTCA.

No, 3-state OTCA has more. For a start you can make the third state do ANYTHING you want. (Generation? Neutronium? Egg? Killer? Wire?) INT cannot pull that trick off.

[confocaloid]

For #11, there's an entire dedicated thread: Very nearly exploding rules.

[Haycat2009]

12. Are there any non-downsteam spaceships in Marine?

[confocaloid]

I didn't explore OCA:Marine, but I just found this seemingly-relevant discussion:

[...]

I wonder whether there are southwest/northeast ships in this rule. (Northwest ships are impossible)

Because the rule doesn't have B4, B3, or birth with less cells in the neighborhood, a population's northward edge can never extend past its initial northward edge. The same thing is true for the westward edge. Therefore, I don't think that spaceships can have any northwards or westwards velocity in Marine. However, spaceships with directions like east or southsoutheast are still theoretically possible.
[...]

[b-engine]

13. Are size of predecessors affect the commonness of a certain pattern?
14. Are oscillators like tumbler considered as shuttle?
15. What's the known sparker with highest clearance?

[confocaloid]

16. Do you trust periodic cellular automata patterns that break their promises?

[b-engine]

17. How if someone pried a use of a large still life?
18. Why there're no pages in Category:Oscillators_with_period_81?
19a. How many states are necessary for a wire OTCA to be Turing complete?
19b. How many states are necessary for a wire OTCA to have universal constructors?
20. Why steaths are required in Codd's CA?
---EDIT---
21. Can alternating rules behave like generation rules? (Like B23/S|B/S23 called as Brian's Brain ripoff)
22. What may come from a 3-state OTCA rulegolfing script?
23. What's the rule with most oscillators? (I may call it SoManyOscs)
24. What's the criteria needed for a rule to contain an adjustable spaceship?
---EDIT 2---
25. Why some people mistake tub and pond?

[breaker's glider gun]

I Do The Opposite.

And it's way more annoying.

[confocaloid]

.

[tommyaweosme]

28. why am i so bad at catalysts?

Code: Select all

x = 10, y = 9, rule = B3/S23
b2o$b2o5$3o5b2o$obo5b2o$obo!

29. why is it called a puffer. it should be called a thingship.

[b-engine]

28. why I'm so bad at catalysts?

Code: Select all

x = 10, y = 9, rule = B3/S23
b2o$b2o5$3o5b2o$obo5b2o$obo!

29. why its called a puffer? it should be called a thingship.

Nowadays new catalysts are hard to find by hand, and most catalysts need specific active region and position in order to work.
It "puffs" things, so it's called "puffer".

31. Why transparent catalysts are hard to find?
32. Is there any spaceship made by corderizing unstable active regions other than cordership?

[tommyaweosme]

28. why I'm so bad at catalysts?

Code: Select all

x = 10, y = 9, rule = B3/S23
b2o$b2o5$3o5b2o$obo5b2o$obo!

29. why its called a puffer? it should be called a thingship.

Nowadays new catalysts are hard to find by hand, and most catalysts need specific active region and position in order to work.
It "puffs" things, so it's called "puffer".

31. Why transparent catalysts are hard to find?
32. Is there any spaceship made by corderizing unstable active regions other than cordership?

you edited my quote :(

31A. for the same reason as i am bad at catalysts

[iddi01]

31. Why transparent catalysts are hard to find?

The chance of a block in a specific location in an infinite random soup is approximately 1 in 473.

...so even for block, you need on average 473 attempts to get a successful transparent reaction.

33. Why the mods stop regularly visiting the OCA forum nowadays?
34. Why people don't like apgsearching other people's rules nowadays?

[confocaloid]

[...] 33. Why the mods stop regularly visiting the OCA forum nowadays? [...]

Relatively high volume of "low effort, low contribution" posts.
Combined with a vastly larger area to understand, before you get the ability to meaningfully determine what likely counts as a productive contribution and what likely doesn't.

[...] 34. Why people don't like apgsearching other people's rules nowadays? [...]

Way too many interesting, notable, apgsearchable cellular automata to study them all one by one?
Focusing on specific rulesets misses other possibilities for exploration.

[b-engine]

35. Will the physical copy of Life Lexicon ever come out?
36. What type of oscillators are hardest to find?

[tommyaweosme]

what is kirby-paris? why can no one enjoy kirby without paris?

kirby, not paris.png (202.25 KiB) Viewed 7850 times

not paris.png (217.84 KiB) Viewed 7850 times

[confocaloid]

37,5. What is the obscurest known cellular automaton with a weighted neighbourhood (NW)?

Code: Select all

x = 5, y = 5, rule = R2,C0,S2-3,B3,NW1010100000100010000010101
2bobo2$obo2$2bo!

edit:

impossible to answer because answer changes when provided

By 'obscurest', I meant complicatedness and lack of clarity in the rulestring (in the CA definition) -- i.e. how hard it is to understand the rules? -- rather than how much it is explored / discussed. That means mentioning a CA will not make it more or less obscure, in this sense.

[tommyaweosme]

impossible to answer because answer changes when provided

[b-engine]

(I feel this is literally Correct answers only thread)

38a. Can unnatural or large elementary spaceships used in construction circuity?
38b. Same as above, but the construction material is caterpillar or another large engineered spaceship.

[tommyaweosme]

39 is there a spaceship made entirely of still life placed on or near echother?
40 how do i grow more legs

[confocaloid]

39 is there a spaceship made entirely of still life placed on or near echother?

I guess someone could try and make a few glider-constructible pure glider generators that (in some generation) are made entirely of temporary still lives placed near each other. Something that looks like this (this is made using the first pattern posted in viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1065 ):

Code: Select all

x = 50, y = 53, rule = B3/S23
12b2o$12b2o9$18b2o$18b2o7$2o$2o4$24b2o$24b2o$39b2o$39b2o16$44b2o$40b2o
2b2o$40b2o6bo$47bo$48bo$44b2o3bo$44b2o3$42b2o$42b2o!
#C [[ T 2 PAUSE 1 ]]

Then arrange multiple such pure glider generators in the Life universe, so that all the temporary still lives appear simultaneously, and so that the resulting gliders collide to construct "something interesting" via glider synthesis. Delete any unwanted escaping gliders by placing additional still lives.
Then "simply" make sure that that "something interesting" just so happens to be the same initial arrangement of glider-constructible glider predecessors, only translated in some direction.
See also viewtopic.php?p=155623#p155623

[tommyaweosme]

41 quick, name this oscillator!

Code: Select all

x = 31, y = 31, rule = B3/S23
bbbbbbbbbbbbbbboobbbbobbbobobbb$
bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbboooooooboobbbo$
bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbooboboobbboobbob$
bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbobbbobbbobbobbbb$
bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbooooobbbbobboooo$
bbbbbbbbbbbbbbboobooboooboboooo$
bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbobbobbboboob$
bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbboooobobbboooob$
bbbbbbbbbbbbbbboobboooboooboobb$
bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbooboobobobobo$
bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbboooooobobbbbbob$
bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbooobbobbobobboob$
bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbobbbbbobbboob$
bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbooobooobobobooo$
bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbboooooobooobbobo$
bbbbooobboobbbooobbboobbooobbbb$
obobboooboooooobbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb$
ooobobobooobooobbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb$
boobbbobbbbbobbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb$
boobbobobbobbooobbbbbbbbbbbbbbb$
bobbbbboboooooobbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb$
obobobobooboobbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb$
bboobooobooobboobbbbbbbbbbbbbbb$
boooobbboboooobbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb$
boobobbbobbobbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb$
oooobobooobooboobbbbbbbbbbbbbbb$
oooobbobbbbooooobbbbbbbbbbbbbbb$
bbbbobbobbbobbbobbbbbbbbbbbbbbb$
bobboobbbooboboobbbbbbbbbbbbbbb$
obbboobooooooobbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb$
bbbobobbbobbbboobbbbbbbbbbbbbbb!/code]

[tommyaweosme]

42 i have a sunburn. how to get rid of it in 2 hours 30 minutes
edit: i baleeted it in 1 hour 30 minutes. still going to xtreme kids tommorow instead of today
edit: nevermind im going today (assuming we still are in friday, but we are in monday now)

[iddi01]

The questions below are to be taken seriously:

Why does the partial get 2 likes, but the complete version got zero likes??
Why does the partial get 2 likes, but the complete version got zero likes??
Why does the partial get 2 likes, but the complete version got zero likes??
Why people resist giving a like to a post unless there's already a like on it?
Why only few people bother to give likes to the average post?
Why does some posts with many likes never get replied?
Why does posts regarding opinions far easier to get likes than posts regarding patterns?
Why does the first post in threads far easier to get likes than other posts?
All the above states that maybe adding the "like" button on forum posts is not a good idea after all, likes are too biased...

Why does ironic-spaceship.rle and many other non-notable patterns made their way into Golly 4.3?
Why the new multistate patterns in Golly 4.3 stop getting their rules packed with them in .zip, but instead the rules got dumped into the Rules folder?
Why Persian Rug, Replicator, Fredkin, and Plow World got included in Golly's default named rules and consequently is 10000x more popular than even B38/S23?
Why Golly made it into Wikipedia?
Why there are no very good CA programs beside Golly and LifeViewer?

Also, a crosspost:

Important note: I noticed that the overall "newbieness" of this forum is rapidly rising over the past few months, to a level that this forum has never reached before. Anyone know why? (OCA forum and sandbox are affected the most.)