NewLifeCA Back Issues

[dvgrn]

NewLifeCA #48, 2 May 2024: new p7 spaceships, oblique wickstretchers, and teaser for new c/4 tech
(sent via email 6:21am CDT, 2 May 2024)

From this morning, here's another NewLifeCA contribution from Matthias Merzenich.

New p7 Spaceships
Period-7 spaceships are quite rare, so it's a bit of a surprise when two unrelated p7 ships are found in a short period of time. On March 21, 2024, Caleb R. Hilton found a 2c/7 orthogonal tagalong for two weekenders. Matthias Merzenich then found a related smaller tagalong, and conwaylife.com user May13 found ways to connect these tagalongs to some existing components, one of which had no previously known supports.

Code: Select all

#C New 2c/7 orthogonal tagalongs by Caleb R. Hilton and
#C Matthias Merzenich, with component connections by May13
x = 82, y = 124, rule = B3/S23
33bo17bo$32bobo15bobo$31bo3bo13bo3bo$32bobo15bobo$32b3o15b3o2$bo12bo
16b2ob3o11b3ob2o$3o10b3o17b2o2bo9bo2b2o$3o10b3o17b2o3bo7bo3b2o$34b2ob
3o5b3ob2o$36b2ob2o3b2ob2o$3bo3b2o3bo28bobo28bo$bob4o2b4obo22bo3bobo3bo
23bobo$bob4o2b4obo23bobo3bobo23bo3bo$39bo5bo25bobo3b2o$5b6o4b3o17b3o9b
3o17b3o2bo2b2o2bo$4b2o4b2o62bo3bo$4b2o4b2o62bo2b2o$15b3o17b3o9b3o17b3o
4bo2b2o$16bo19bo11bo19bo5b2o2bo$17bo17bo13bo17bo9bo$19b2o11b2o17b2o11b
2o10b2obo$20b2o9b2o19b2o9b2o$16b2o3bo9bo3b2o11b2o3bo9bo3b2o$16b3o2b3o
5b3o2b3o11b3o2b3o5b3o2b3o6b3o$18bo2b3o5b3o2bo15bo2b3o5b3o2bo$19bo2b2o
5b2o2bo17bo2b2o5b2o2bo11b2o$20b3o7b3o19b3o7b3o12b2o$18bob3o7b3obo15bob
3o7b3obo9b2o$21b2o7b2o21b2o7b2o10b2o2bo$19bobo9bobo17bobo9bobo7bobobo$
19b3o9b3o17b3o9b3o7bo2b3o$19bobo9bobo17bobo9bobo6b3o2b2o$21b2o7b2o21b
2o7b2o9b2o2b2o$18b2o13b2o15b2o13b2o12bo$19b2o11b2o17b2o11b2o14bo$19b2o
11b2o17b2o11b2o11bo2bo$20bobo7bobo19bobo7bobo12bo2bo$23bo5bo25bo5bo15b
3o$76bobo$21b2o7b2o21b2o7b2o11bob2o$20bo11bo19bo11bo12bobo$19bobo9bobo
17bobo9bobo10b2obobo$19bob2o7b2obo17bob2o7b2obo12b2obo$18b2obo9bob2o
15b2obo9bob2o13b2o$18bo15bo15bo15bo$19bobo9bobo17bobo9bobo$19bo13bo17b
o13bo$19b3ob2o3b2ob3o17b3ob2o3b2ob3o$18bo4b2o3b2o4bo15bo4b2o3b2o4bo$
17bo6bo3bo6bo13bo6bo3bo6bo$22b2o5b2o23b2o5b2o$16b2ob4o7b4ob2o11b2ob4o
7b4ob2o$16b2o17b2o11b2o17b2o2$17bo5b3ob3o5bo13bo5b3ob3o5bo$17bob5obobo
b5obo13bob5obobob5obo$21bo3bobo3bo21bo3bobo3bo$18b2ob4o3b4ob2o15b2ob4o
3b4ob2o$18b3ob2o5b2ob3o15b3ob2o5b2ob3o2$24b2ob2o27b2ob2o$25bobo29bobo$
23b2o3b2o25b2o3b2o$22bobo3bobo23bobo3bobo$22b2o5b2o23b2o5b2o$22bo7bo
23bo7bo$23b3ob3o25b3ob3o$25bobo29bobo$23bobobobo25bobobobo$21bo3bobo3b
o21bo3bobo3bo$21b3obobob3o21b3obobob3o$24bo3bo27bo3bo$26bo31bo$20bo4b
3o4bo19bo4b3o4bo$21bo9bo21bo9bo$23b3ob3o25b3ob3o2$24b2ob2o27b2ob2o$24b
2ob2o28bobo$55bobobobo$22b9o23b2obobob2o$22bo3bo3bo24bo5bo$20bobo7bobo
$19bo2b2o5b2o2bo19b2o7b2o$20bobobo3bobobo19bob2o5b2obo$21bo3bobo3bo19b
2ob2o5b2ob2o$22bobo3bobo21bob2o5b2obo$22bo7bo19bo2bo9bo2bo$22bo7bo18bo
6b2ob2o6bo$21b3o5b3o17bo4bo7bo4bo$21bo2bo3bo2bo18b2o4b2ob2o4b2o$20b2o
9b2o20b3o5b3o$20bobo7bobo22bo5bo$19b2o11b2o$18bobo11bobo$18bobo11bobo$
18bobo11bobo$21bo9bo$19bobo9bobo$21b2o7b2o$21b3o5b3o$21b2obo3bob2o$20b
o3b2ob2o3bo$19b2o3bo3bo3b2o$18bo5bo3bo5bo$17bobo3b3ob3o3bobo$17bo2bo2b
o5bo2bo2bo$18bobo11bobo$24b2ob2o$19bo2bo3bo3bo2bo$23bo5bo$20bo2bo5bo2b
o$20b3o7b3o$18bo2bo9bo2bo$20bo11bo$17bo5b3ob3o5bo$17bobobobo5bobobobo$
18bo4b2o3b2o4bo$23bo5bo$19bo2bo7bo2bo$19b2obo7bob2o$19b3o9b3o$18b2o13b
2o!

More significantly, on April 17, 2024, Hilton found only the fourth known elementary c/7 orthogonal spaceships.

Code: Select all

#C The fourth known elementary c/7 orthogonal spaceship
#C Caleb R. Hilton, April 17, 2024
x = 19, y = 35, rule = B3/S23
4bo9bo$6bo5bo$bo5bo3bo5bo$8bobo$2ob3ob2ob2ob3ob2o2$4bo9bo$3bobo7bobo$
2bo4b2ob2o4bo$2o3b4ob4o3b2o$o3bo9bo3bo$2bo13bo$2bo13bo2$3b5o3b5o$7bo3b
o$8bobo3$5b9o2$4bobo5bobo$3b2o9b2o$3b3o7b3o$3b2o9b2o$2bo2bobo3bobo2bo$
b2o5bobo5b2o$2bobo2bo3bo2bobo$5b2o5b2o2$2bo2b2o5b2o2bo$2bo2b2o5b2o2bo$
6bo5bo$3b2o9b2o$3bo11bo!

The strong leading sparks immediately solved several previously known partial results by Hilton, Merzenich, Frank Everdij, and Hartmut Holzwart.

Code: Select all

#C Pushalongs for a new c/7 orthogonal spaceship
#C By Caleb R. Hilton, Matthias Merzenich,
#C Frank Everdij, and Hartmut Holzwart
x = 401, y = 103, rule = B3/S23
15bo5bo$15bobob2obo200b3o$15b2obob3o197bo$17bobo199bo4bo$19bo200bo$16b
o204b2o$14b3o3b2o199bobo$14bobo5bo198bob2o$14bobob2obo197bob2o$20bo
198bobo$16b2obo$17bo3bo199bobo$22bo198bobo$18bo2b2o198b2o2$216b3o$216b
3o$18b5o193bobo$17bo5b2o190bo2b2o$16bo197bo3bob2o$16bo7bo189bo4b3o$22b
o190bo2bo4bo$19b2o195bo$17bo2bo3bo$17b2o2bo3bo191b5o$16bo2bo2bo191bo2b
5o$18b5ob2o189b2o2b4o$19bobo192b2o164bo$19b3o193bo7bo155bobo$19b2o193b
o7bo156bobo$16b3ob2o149bo5bo38bo157bo5bo5bo$16b2o152bobo3bobo35bobo
156bobo9bobo$17bo152bobo3bobo35b2ob3o152bo3bo3bo3bo3bo$171b2o3b2o39bo
2bo152b2obob2ob2obob2o$171b3ob3o40bo157b2o5b2o$15bo152bo2bo5bo2bo37bob
2o154b2obobob2o$14bobobob3o145bo3b2ob2o3bo34b2obo158bobobobo$14b2o2bo
149bo11bo35bob2o158bo3bo$17bobo193b2obo$18bo148b2o11b2o30bo4bo159b2o3b
2o$18b2o56bo25bo68b2o3b2o34b2obo157bobo9bobo$14bo2b2ob2o53bobo23bobo
25bo25bo11b3obobobobob3o32bobo155bobobobo3bobobobo$14bob2o3b2o52bo2bo
21bo2bo24bobo23bobo12bo3bobo3bo36bo155bobo11bobo$15b3o4bo53b2o23b2o25b
o2bo21bo2bo13b2obobob2o34b2obo159b2o5b2o$19bobo107b2o23b2o14b2obobob2o
32bob2o2b2o156b3o5b3o$75bo27bo25bo25bo17bobo34bo2bo5bo154bo11bo$16b4o
56bo25bo69b2ob2o35b2ob2o$15b4o56b2o25b2o25bo25bo15bobobobo34bo5b2o26bo
5bo43bo$14b2ob2o56bo4bo17bo4bo24b2o25b2o14bo5bo33b3o31bobo3bobo41bobo
79b3ob3o$79bobo15bobo28b2o3bo17bo3b2o57bobo27bo2bo3bo2bo39bo2b2o75bob
2obobob2obo$78bo21bo31b2o17b2o19bo3bo38bo29b2o5b2o40bo2bo76b2obobobobo
b2o$79b2o17b2o31bo21bo18bo3bo118bobo76bo2bobobobo2bo$78bo21bo30b2o19b
2o16bobo3bobo34b3o31bo3bo43b2o78bobobobobobo$13b7o59b3o15b3o31bo2bo15b
o2bo14bob9obo32b2ob2o27b4ob4o41bo3b3o72b2obobobobob2o$12bob4ob2o111b2o
17b2o15bo3b2ob2o3bo31bo3b2o78b2obo73b3obobobobob3o$12b4o3b2o23b3o7b3o
22b2obo13bob2o71b2obob2o35b3o29bobo3bobo39b2ob4o72b2o3bobobobo3b2o$16b
3o25b3o7b3o22bobobo11bobobo32b4o13b4o16bobob3obobo33b2o33bobo43b3obo
77b2obobob2o$14b3obo28bo5bo27bo2b2o7b2o2bo34bobob2o9b2obobo16b2o2b3o2b
2o33b3o29b2o5b2o42bo78bo2b2ob2o2bo$18b2o60bobo13bobo35bob2o9b2obo60bo
2bo31bo5bo43bo2bo72b2o2b2o5b2o2b2o$13b2o2b2ob2o21b2o11b2o24bo13bo38b2o
11b2o16b2ob2o7b2ob2o31bo32bo3bo47bo72bo3bo7bo3bo$12bo2bo2bob2o23bo9bo
24b2o15b2o34bobo13bobo14b2o3bo5bo3b2o28b3o33bo3bo41b3o78bo11bo$13bob3o
2bo22b3o9b3o26b2o7b2o39bo15bo21bo3bo70bo3bo40bo4bo75b2o11b2o$19bo28b2o
b2o31b2obo3bob2o42b3o5b3o100b3o42b2o78b3o9b3o$16bo32bobo33bo7bo76bo2bo
bo2bo65bo3b3o3bo41b3o75bo2b2o3b2o2bo$15b2obo27b2obobob2o31b3ob3o44b2o
2bobo2b2o22bo3bo3bo34b3o27b3o7b3o40b3o77b3o3b3o$12b2o3bo27bo9bo26b2o
11b2o42b2o3b2o25bo2bo2bo35b3o26bo13bo39bo78bo9bo$12b2o68b2o11b2o38b2o
3bo3bo27b5o36b3o27b3o7b3o36b3o55bo24bobo5bobo$45bobo5bobo79b2o37bo69b
2o7b2o38bo55bobo23bo9bo$4bo9bo69bo9bo29bo11bo27bo9bo29bo9bo29bo9bo29bo
10bo28bo9bo13bo2bo12bo11bo7bo11bo$6bo5bo33bo5bo33bo5bo33bo5bo33bo5bo
33bo5bo33bo5bo33bo5bo33bo5bo16b3o14bo5bo15bo5bo$bo5bo3bo5bo23bo5bo3bo
5bo23bo5bo3bo5bo23bo5bo3bo5bo23bo5bo3bo5bo23bo5bo3bo5bo23bo5bo3bo5bo
23bo5bo3bo5bo23bo5bo3bo5bo11b2o10bo5bo3bo5bo5bo5bo3bo5bo$8bobo37bobo
37bobo37bobo37bobo37bobo37bobo37bobo37bobo37bobo19bobo$2ob3ob2ob2ob3ob
2o21b2ob3ob2ob2ob3ob2o21b2ob3ob2ob2ob3ob2o21b2ob3ob2ob2ob3ob2o21b2ob3o
b2ob2ob3ob2o21b2ob3ob2ob2ob3ob2o21b2ob3ob2ob2ob3ob2o21b2ob3ob2ob2ob3ob
2o21b2ob3ob2ob2ob3ob2o11b2o8b2ob3ob2ob2ob3ob2o3b2ob3ob2ob2ob3ob2o$349b
o$4bo9bo29bo9bo29bo9bo29bo9bo29bo9bo29bo9bo29bo9bo29bo9bo29bo9bo11b2o
2b2o12bo9bo11bo9bo$3bobo7bobo27bobo7bobo27bobo7bobo27bobo7bobo27bobo7b
obo27bobo7bobo27bobo7bobo27bobo7bobo27bobo7bobo10b2o15bobo7bobo9bobo7b
obo$2bo4b2ob2o4bo25bo4b2ob2o4bo25bo4b2ob2o4bo25bo4b2ob2o4bo25bo4b2ob2o
4bo25bo4b2ob2o4bo25bo4b2ob2o4bo25bo4b2ob2o4bo25bo4b2ob2o4bo9bobo13bo4b
2ob2o4bo7bo4b2ob2o4bo$2o3b4ob4o3b2o21b2o3b4ob4o3b2o21b2o3b4ob4o3b2o21b
2o3b4ob4o3b2o21b2o3b4ob4o3b2o21b2o3b4ob4o3b2o21b2o3b4ob4o3b2o21b2o3b4o
b4o3b2o21b2o3b4ob4o3b2o8b3o10b2o3b4ob4o3b2o3b2o3b4ob4o3b2o$o3bo9bo3bo
21bo3bo9bo3bo21bo3bo9bo3bo21bo3bo9bo3bo21bo3bo9bo3bo21bo3bo9bo3bo21bo
3bo9bo3bo21bo3bo9bo3bo21bo3bo9bo3bo9bo11bo3bo9bo3bo3bo3bo9bo3bo$2bo13b
o25bo13bo25bo13bo25bo13bo25bo13bo25bo13bo25bo13bo25bo13bo25bo13bo9b2o
14bo13bo7bo13bo$2bo13bo25bo13bo25bo13bo25bo13bo25bo13bo25bo13bo25bo13b
o25bo13bo25bo13bo25bo13bo7bo13bo$343b3obo$3b5o3b5o27b5o3b5o27b5o3b5o
27b5o3b5o27b5o3b5o27b5o3b5o27b5o3b5o27b5o3b5o27b5o3b5o6bo4bo15b5o3b5o
9b5o3b5o$7bo3bo35bo3bo35bo3bo35bo3bo35bo3bo35bo3bo35bo3bo35bo3bo35bo3b
o13b2o20bo3bo17bo3bo$8bobo37bobo37bobo37bobo37bobo37bobo37bobo37bobo
37bobo11bo25bobo19bobo$343b2o$341bo3bo$5b9o31b9o31b9o31b9o31b9o31b9o
31b9o31b9o31b9o7bo23b9o13b9o$340bo$4bobo5bobo29bobo5bobo29bobo5bobo29b
obo5bobo29bobo5bobo29bobo5bobo29bobo5bobo29bobo5bobo29bobo5bobo4b3o22b
obo5bobo11bobo5bobo$3b2o9b2o27b2o9b2o27b2o9b2o27b2o9b2o27b2o9b2o27b2o
9b2o27b2o9b2o27b2o9b2o27b2o9b2o2b4o21b2o9b2o9b2o9b2o$3b3o7b3o27b3o7b3o
27b3o7b3o27b3o7b3o27b3o7b3o27b3o7b3o27b3o7b3o27b3o7b3o27b3o7b3o3b2o22b
3o7b3o9b3o7b3o$3b2o9b2o27b2o9b2o27b2o9b2o27b2o9b2o27b2o9b2o27b2o9b2o
27b2o9b2o27b2o9b2o27b2o9b2o27b2o9b2o9b2o9b2o$2bo2bobo3bobo2bo25bo2bobo
3bobo2bo25bo2bobo3bobo2bo25bo2bobo3bobo2bo25bo2bobo3bobo2bo25bo2bobo3b
obo2bo25bo2bobo3bobo2bo25bo2bobo3bobo2bo25bo2bobo3bobo2bo25bo2bobo3bob
o2bo7bo2bobo3bobo2bo$b2o5bobo5b2o23b2o5bobo5b2o23b2o5bobo5b2o23b2o5bob
o5b2o23b2o5bobo5b2o23b2o5bobo5b2o23b2o5bobo5b2o23b2o5bobo5b2o23b2o5bob
o5b2o23b2o5bobo5b2o5b2o5bobo5b2o$2bobo2bo3bo2bobo25bobo2bo3bo2bobo25bo
bo2bo3bo2bobo25bobo2bo3bo2bobo25bobo2bo3bo2bobo25bobo2bo3bo2bobo25bobo
2bo3bo2bobo25bobo2bo3bo2bobo25bobo2bo3bo2bobo25bobo2bo3bo2bobo7bobo2bo
3bo2bobo$5b2o5b2o31b2o5b2o31b2o5b2o31b2o5b2o31b2o5b2o31b2o5b2o31b2o5b
2o31b2o5b2o31b2o5b2o31b2o5b2o13b2o5b2o2$2bo2b2o5b2o2bo25bo2b2o5b2o2bo
25bo2b2o5b2o2bo25bo2b2o5b2o2bo25bo2b2o5b2o2bo25bo2b2o5b2o2bo25bo2b2o5b
2o2bo25bo2b2o5b2o2bo25bo2b2o5b2o2bo25bo2b2o5b2o2bo7bo2b2o5b2o2bo$2bo2b
2o5b2o2bo25bo2b2o5b2o2bo25bo2b2o5b2o2bo25bo2b2o5b2o2bo25bo2b2o5b2o2bo
25bo2b2o5b2o2bo25bo2b2o5b2o2bo25bo2b2o5b2o2bo25bo2b2o5b2o2bo25bo2b2o5b
2o2bo7bo2b2o5b2o2bo$6bo5bo33bo5bo33bo5bo33bo5bo33bo5bo33bo5bo33bo5bo
33bo5bo33bo5bo33bo5bo15bo5bo$3b2o9b2o27b2o9b2o27b2o9b2o27b2o9b2o27b2o
9b2o27b2o9b2o27b2o9b2o27b2o9b2o27b2o9b2o27b2o9b2o9b2o9b2o$3bo11bo27bo
11bo27bo11bo27bo11bo27bo11bo27bo11bo27bo11bo27bo11bo27bo11bo27bo11bo9b
o11bo!

Synthesis-Based Knightship "Wickstretchers"
Keith Amling and conwaylife.com user vilc have constructed two patterns traveling at speed (2,1)c/6 which incrementally build wicks using glider synthesis. They are both too large to show here, but they can be downloaded from the following locations and run in Golly:

• (2,1)c/6 stretcher for a wick of barely interacting queen bee shuttles by Keith Amling
• (2,1)c/6 stretcher for a stable wick by Keith Amling and vilc

Coming Soon: New c/4 Diagonal Technology
There's been an explosion of new c/4 diagonal technology in recent months, due mainly to the work of Keith Amling, David Bell, and Matthias Merzenich. This includes new puffer engines, rakes, object eaters, glider circuitry, and large constructions. I hope to write up a comprehensive overview soon.

[dvgrn]

NewLifeCA #49, 16 March 2025: true period 14 gun!
(sent via email 1:18pm CDT, 16 March 2024)

The Future of NewLifeCA
It's been almost a year now since anyone has managed to put together a NewLifeCA email. That's far too long -- mostly because the longer the delay is between emails, the more impossible it is for new messages to have any hope of catching up with current events.

I'm going to be even busier with Real Life this year than I was last year. So ... it might be best for me to officially close out the NewLifeCA experiment at this point, with a nice square forty-nine messages -- unless someone else wants to take over the job of writing these bulletins, of course!

Likely Replacement: LifeWiki Current News
The silver lining here is that the LifeWiki Current News list has been getting maintained fairly well for the past few years. Which is to say, most of the post-May-2024 items that would be likely to have found their way into a NewLifeCA bulletin have been added to Current News, and can be reviewed there.

Now, please be aware that the Current News archive is not an exhaustive list of new CGoL discoveries, by any means. A deeper dive into various conwaylife.com forum threads will show that there is quite a lot more going on than can be easily summarized. There are any number of new finds and incremental improvements in 2024 that haven't found their way onto that list. Many of these were really plenty notable enough to be mentioned, but at the time it just didn't occur to anyone to write them up for Current News.

In any case, do please have a look at the LifeWiki Current News archive for new items since May 2024.

Just for example, there's the series of new smallest self-supporting spaceships starting with Gustone's leaf bug, the completion of the 22-bit still life synthesis project, some surprising never-before-seen small elementary spaceships, a new complete 32-bit Life computer implementation, reduced lower population bounds for non-glider-constructible still lifes and reduced recovery time for highway robbers -- and lots more in the conduit, oscillator, spaceship, glider synthesis, glider gun, and other departments.

In the absence of further NewLifeCA bulletins, definitely keep checking the Current News list regularly; add a reminder to your calendar if necessary!

However, a true p14 gun is a big enough special occasion to finally trigger one more NewLifeCA writeup:

True-period p14 glider gun
The original pseudo-period-14 glider gun was a period 210 construction by Dietrich Leithner; the 1994 version was 1716 × 1662, reduced to 695 × 689 two years later.

Today the bounding box has dropped to two digits in both X and Y directions, and the gun is now true-period. Matthias Merzenich has used Logic Life Search, a SAT-solver-based search program, to complete a custom period-7 sparker that can release gliders from James Pascua's period-14 banana sparker:

Code: Select all

#N true period 14 gun
#O Matthias Merzenich, 16 March 2025
#C https://conwaylife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=207054#p207054
#C Custom p7 sparker found by LLS, to extract gliders from a known
#C period-14 banana sparker constructed by James Pascua in May 2023:
#C https://conwaylife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=161739#p161739
x = 72, y = 64, rule = B3/S23
39b2o$38bo2bob2o$37bo2b2obobo$37b2obo4bo$38bo2b2o2bob2o$36bo2bobo2b2o
2bo$35bob3obobo2bo$26bo9bo5bob2o$26b3o8b3o$4b2o23bo10b6o$4bobo4b2o3b2o
6b4o2bo4b3ob2o4bo$7bo3b2o2bobo6bo3b2o4bo3bobob2o$2o3b2obo6bobob2ob2o3b
o4bo2b4obobo$bo2bobob7obobobobo5b6obobo2bo3bo$o3bo2bo8bo3bo2bo4bo6bo2b
o2b4o$4obo2b6o2b2ob6o5b5o3b2o$5b3o4bo2b3obo4bo8bo5bob2o$2o3bobobo4bo5b
ob2o10b2obobobobo$o4bobobob10obo4bo6bo3bobo2bo$b3ob2o2bo12bo3bobo5bo3b
obobo$4bo4b4o2b2o2b2obob3obo4b5o3bo$b2obo7bo2bo4bo2bo4b2o2b5o$bobo7bo
4bo3bo3b4o2bo5bo$10bob4o2b2ob3o4b2o5bo$11bo4b2obobo3b2obobo3b2o3b2o$
12b3obo9bobo2b2obo3bo2bo$14bo2b4o4bo2bo4bo4b3o$15b2o4bo4b3ob3obo$17b5o
7bob2o3b3o$17bob4o3b2obo4b2o3bo$4b2o8b2obo5bobobob2o4bo3bo$5bo8bo2bo2b
o2bobo3bo2b2o3bob2o$5bobo7b2o2bobobo2bo2bo6b2o3bo$6b3ob2o5b5ob3o2b2obo
6b3o3b2o$8b2obo5bo4bo7b2obo4bo5bo2b2o$8b3o7b3obob6o2b2o11bobo$4b2o3bo
10bobobo9b2o8b2obo2b2o10b2o$4bo2bobo17b2obo2bobo7bo3bobobo10bobob2o$6b
2obo2bo8b3o3bo4bo2bo6b3ob2obo14bobobob2o$10b2o16bo3bo2b2ob2o23b2o3bobo
$29b2ob2o6bo5b2o4b2ob2o7bo3bo2bo$22bo9b2o3bo2bo4b3o3b6o2b2o2bo5b2o$21b
3o13bo2bo3bo13bo5b5o$11b2o7b5o12b2obo3b2o4bobo2bobo3bo6bo$11b2o6b2o3b
2o4bo7bobo3bo3bobob2obob11o$10bo8b2ob3o3bobo7bobobobobobobo14bo$9b3o8b
4o5b2o8bobob2ob2o2bobob9o$19bo2bo10bo7bo3bo4bob2o5bo2bo$34bo5b2o3bob3o
5b2o$14b3o7bo7b3o11b2o8bo$15bo7bobo28bo$13b2o9bo12bo16b2o$13b2o20bobo$
36b2o$40bo$41bo$14b2o23b3o$14bobo$15b2o27bo$42bobo$12b2o29b2o$13bo33bo
$10b3o35bo$10bo35b3o!
#C [[ AUTOSTART ZOOM 6 GPS 10 LOOP 1400 ]]

This represents only "the first thing that worked", so some further size reductions are likely.

Until today, period 14 was one of just a double handful of periods for which true-period glider guns were not known. The remaining unknown periods are 17, 18, 19, 23, 26, 29, 31, 38 and 39.

[dvgrn]

Hello, all! 2025 is coming to a close. That seems like a good time to remind this mailing list to check out the interesting happenings over the past year or two in the Conway's Life universe.

First of all, voting for Pattern of the Year 2024 is still going on. You have until the end of 2025 to review the list and put in your votes on the POTY 2025 forum thread.

Then there's 2025, which isn't quite over yet.  There's still time for a few more new discoveries to show up before New Year's Day. So please remember to keep an eye on LifeWiki CurrentNews.

There's been quite a bit of trouble with the LifeWiki server being unresponsive in the last month or two, apparently due to AI companies being collectively rather rude about constantly demanding the absolute latest information to feed their LLM models. It looks like this may continue for a while yet.

So ... when you try the above link, be patient and hit the refresh button as often as needed. The page *will* load eventually! As a temporary alternative, the next post in this thread will be a copy of 2025 Current News items -- with direct links to the relevant forum posts, since the forums are currently much less affected by the problem than the LifeWiki.

------------------------

Today the big news is the completion of the latest large collaborative project, synthesizing all 1,646,147 of the 23-bit strict still lifes. Here is the thread that Mitchell Riley started for that project, back in August.

This type of synthesis-puzzle entertainment will likely be around for a good while. The smallest provably unsynthesizable still life was reduced to 154 cells this year... but it seems improbable that we'll completely close the Unknown Synthesizability gap between 24 cells and 153 cells, any time soon.

Here's a selection of other new items from 2025. No matter how many items I mention, there will always be more discoveries that are also worth highlighting -- so please do read through the CurrentNews archive page to get links and attributions and more of the items that I've left out or only briefly mentioned below.

------------------------

The year started with the surprise discovery of a new c/5 spaceship, "tarantula", with the same minimum population as the spider. A new set of three unexpectedly small 2c/7 spaceships also showed up in 2025, along with a new 32-cell 2c/4 orthogonal spaceship.

Glider recipes were found for several more spaceships at the current edge of synthesizability -- 32P4H2V0, 34P5H2V0, and 35P4H1V1, 37P4H1V1.2, and 42P3H1V0, among others.

Designs for several record-breaking small self-supporting engineered spaceships made an appearance -- the orthogonal "water strider" and "leaf bug", a (28,7)c/448 giraffeship, and a family of incredibly small oblique (12,4)c/62 "solifuge" mini-macro-spaceships with many variants less than 1500 cells and fitting inside a 400x400 bounding box.

Some new minstrels and associated (2,1)c/6 knightship technology have also turned up recently, joining the adjustable-period knightrakes in 2024 and the "baby minstrel" in 2023.

Progress is continuing toward more versatile signal-carrying wire technology, including new converters to and from traffic-jam signals, faster 2c/3 signal receivers, and a first-ever signal receiver for 5c/9 wire.

Quite a few spaceship guns were created this year, including a large but fairly simple gun that produces c/11 Speed Demonoids, a gun that emits a solifuge variant, and even a very complex gun that fires "leaf bugs".

Several new true-period guns made an appearance in 2025, including period 18 and period 14. There are now an impressive number of really surprisingly small true-period guns.

Check the LifeWiki CurrentNews archives also for quite a bit of new circuitry of various types and purposes, including "Thessalonic" circuitry (made only of blocks and fishhook eaters). A Thessalonic Demonoid was another of the new macro-spaceship constructions. New types of greyships showed up. The last component holdout from 2010-era calculator patterns was rebuilt with modern technology at a fraction of the size. A lot of new contributions appeared in the "gliderless spaceship guns" category, and more records were broken in the Smallest Known Oscillator of Period N (SKOP) collection.

------------------------

Last but definitely not least, by any metric besides bounding box height --

2025 turned out to be the year when width-1 spaceships were finally demonstrated. On December 2nd, Vladan Majerech completed a project that was started a decade ago, creating a "unidimensional spaceship" with a speed of 2c/133076755768 and a bounding box of 1 × 3707300605.

------------------------

More next year, no doubt!  Happy holidays, and keep the cheer --


Dave

[dvgrn]

Here is the post mentioned in the previous message, with direct links to posts here on the forums. The forum message link is usually the second link in each news item, i.e., the verb: "discovers", "invents", "creates", "uses", "synthesizes", etc.

This might make it a little easier to reach the primary source material without wrestling with the LifeWiki, which has been rather unreliable lately.

December 27: A five-month-long collaboration concludes when vilc successfully synthesizes the final 23-bit still life for which no glider synthesis was known; a recipe is now available for all 1,646,147 strict still lifes with 23 bits.
December 23: FWKnightship assembles a self-supporting (28,7)c/448 giraffeship, using a spine made of xWSS convoys that are arranged to release a glider whenever they encounter a block, while moving the block by (7,-28); this mechanism supports limited slow salvo construction equivalent to the arrangements of loaves in a Caterloopillar, but allows for oblique rather than orthogonal travel.
December 20-21: David Bell builds two "fleet puller" growing spaceships, where the tail end pulls a fleet along with it two diagonal steps at a time, if the fleet is present; otherwise a blinker is alternately created and destroyed.
December 19: Period1GliderGun constructs a very compact traffic jam signal injector based on the syringe, with the same low repeat time (78 ticks, overclockable to 74 ticks but not 75 since traffic jam wicks are period 2). ElijahKen reduces the repeat time to 597.
December 17: qqd creates a stable Heisenburp device that can detect passing solifuge spaceships -- or waterbears or other oblique spaceships that use the same technology to turn LWSS streams 90 degrees at a corner.
December 14-21: Caleb R. Hilton discovers a "wave minstrel", a (2,1)c/6 tagalong for Sir Robin that supports a connection to knightwave -- followed a week later by another completely new minstrel; these are the first new minstrel tagalongs since the baby minstrel appeared in {{year|2023}}. Both of them are tagalongs to the wandering minstrel, with initial sections that are different from each other and also from the connecting minstrel.
December 10: Entity Valkyrie builds a stable MWSS-to-HWSS hammer (a device made only from stable circuitry that converts an MWSS directly into an HWSS) in response to a construction challenge.
December 10: FWKnightship builds an "exponentially spaced binary counter" in response to a construction challenge.
December 9: Entity Valkyrie constructs a gun for a solifuge variant based on glider syntheses by hibiscus, iNoMed, and Goldtiger997. This is by far the smallest known gun for an oblique spaceship.
December 2-7: Nico Brown constructs "solifuge" camelships with greatly reduced bounding box (with slight additional reduction by Elijah Ken) and population using improved (12,4)c/62 technology; the new designs fit inside a minimal bounding box of {{times|315|287}} and have a minimum population of 1415 respectively.
December 2: Hippo.69 completes a unidimensional spaceship with a speed of 2c/133076755768 and a bounding box of {{times|1|3707300605}} based on preliminary work by many other contributors.
December 1: voting begins for the Pattern of the Year 2024 competition. Users have until the end of December to cast their votes.
November 30: Nico Brown constructs a complete self-supporting Solifuge|(12,4)c/62 spaceship, named "solifuge", based on an oblique crawler made up of four copies of a versatile LOM-based reaction; the spaceship is a tiny fraction of the size of previously known camelships.
November 29: branoc builds a new "B2D" unit -- a two-dimensional memory storage mechanism used by APGsembly-based calculators -- using components from enofet's design and EvinZL's boat reactions.
November 28: James Pascua completes the first-ever signal loop containing a segment of 5c/9 wire, combining previous discoveries by Extrementhusiast, Simon Ekström, and Entity Valkyrie.
November 24: PK22 updates the original Thessalonic Demonoid to be fully Thessalonic (circuitry entirely made from eaters and blocks, with no temporary Snarks at any stage).
November 18: James Pascua discovers a period-14 pipsquirter using a drifter reaction by Adam P. Goucher.
November 1-11: Keith Amling confirms that 70P5H2V0 is the only strict, symmetric, even-width, period-5 2c/5 orthogonal spaceship up to 70 cells, simultaneously showing that 30P5H2V0 and 34P5H2V0 are the only period-5 2c/5 orthogonal spaceships up to 35 cells. Amling later extends these results to show that there are exactly three symmetric, even-width, period-5 2c/5 spaceships up to 74 cells and no additional period-5 2c/5 spaceships up to 37 cells.
November 5: Caleb R. Hilton discovers Hilton's p66 via D8_1-symmetric apgsearch. This is the first period-66 oscillator to occur seminaturally
November 3: qqd finds a direct conversion mechanism using only stable catalysts, with a glider input and traffic jam output.
October 27: Matthias Merzenich confirms that mazing and mold are the only period-4 oscillators up to 17 cells.
October 26: TigerCub414 discovers a period-2 Rx130 Herschel conduit using only catalysts more Most_common_objects_on_Catagolue|common than eater 1 and constructs a common-catalyst Herschel loop using this new conduit along with R64, sidesnagger, and a boat-and-toad glider eater.
October 26: The Golly Gang releases Golly 5.0.
October 22-26: Mitchell Riley [https://gitlab.com/mvr2/apgmera/-/commi ... d2b6a2a35b implements] the remaining GPU symmetries for apgsearch (fourfold rotational and all reflectional types with diagonal lines of symmetry). Using this, siffrin normal discovers new oscillators of periods 7 and 8.
October 23: Tanner Jacobi substantially improves a heuristic originally developed by Mitchell Riley for quickly identifying ash patterns containing objects from a desired list without triggering false positives from common objects.
October 20: Matthias Merzenich completes a period-3 bouncer based on a partial result by James Pascua. This is the first fast period-3 colour-changing reflector to be found.
October 18: PK22 completes a Thessalonic Demonoid, the first self-constructing spaceship with permanent circuitry that consists only of eaters and blocks.
October 17: Period1GliderGun discovers a small period-4 HWSS-to-B-heptomino converter and uses this to construct a compact period-8 HWSS reflector.
October 5-13: Matthias Merzenich confirms that the glider, crab, and wings are the only period-4 c/4 diagonal spaceships up to 27 cells.
October 9: Tanner Jacobi discovers a 6-glider glider synthesis|synthesis for fuse with two long tails, proving that every 12-bit still life can be synthesised with 6 or fewer gliders.
October 4: Matthias Merzenich confirms that pseudo-barberpole is the only period-5 oscillator up to 15 cells.
October 4: David Bell builds a sawtooth pattern with a new front-end speed, c/8 diagonal, based on two streams of gliders from c/12 forward rakes repeatedly catching up to a walrus.
September 23-October 4: PK22 constructs gliderless guns for LWSS on HWSS 3, MWSS on MWSS 1, Coe ship, loafer, and 2-engine Cordership. These are the first known gliderless guns for non-standard spaceship|standard spaceships.
September 26: Luka Okanishi builds a splitter for a specific triplet of gliders with a repeat time of 57, one tick smaller than the record set by Entity Valkyrie on September 7.
September 21: David Bell produces the first known gliderless sawtooth pattern, involving streams of LWSS pairs chasing a turtle.
September 2-15: Hippo.69 further reduces the Leaf_bug_2#Gun|leaf bug gun to a bounding box of {{times|82,038|71,679}}, which is more than an order of magnitude reduction in each dimension relative to the original design.
September 10: Gustone discovers SW28T249, a new and surprisingly simple Spartan Herschel-to-glider converter with a repeat time of 249 ticks.
September 7: Entity Valkyrie constructs a stable duplicator for the LWSS-on-LWSS pseudo-spaceship with a repeat time of 58 ticks. This is now the lowest known repeat time for a stable duplicator of a moving object or pseudo-object, being 3 ticks lower than speed tunnel-based glider duplicators.
August 29: Hippo.69 reduces the leaf bug 2#Gun|leaf bug gun from a bounding box of {{times|1,097,252|829,150}} to a bounding box of {{times|124,834|117,922}}.
August 18-22: Mitchell Riley starts a new thread to track the remaining unsynthesized 23-bit strict still lifes. Progress is being made with a mix of approaches (e.g., new custom components to convert an already synthesized still life to one of the target forms, and also adaptations of soup-search results). An early list of 591 unsolved still lifes was reduced to below 450 as of August 22, and to 222 by September 10.
August 14: Entity Valkyrie constructs a gun for a variant of leaf bug 2. This is the first gun to fire a 31c/240 orthogonal spaceship.
August 10: Keith Amling discovers three closely related 2c/7 orthogonal spaceships, two of them bilaterally symmetric, based on a front end by shuich01. In terms of their {{times|23|28}} bounding box, they are tied as the third smallest known 2c/7 spaceships, after weekender and doo-dah.
August 5: TigerCub414 further reduces the repeat time of the 2c/3 wire|2c/3 receiver to 504 ticks.
August 1-2: TigerCub414 reduces the repeat time of the 2c/3 wire|2c/3 receiver to 629 ticks using a new emitter which releases a glider and a Herschel; the next day, Entity Valkyrie 2 improves the repeat time to 570.
July 26: Dmitry Maitak and Chris857 complete a synthesis of a 15WSS supported by pushalong 1. This is the longest overweight spaceship flotilla synthesized so far.
July 24: Matthias Merzenich completes a proof that all overweight spaceship flotillas consisting of a single overweight spaceship supported on each side by a single standard spaceship can be synthesised. This proof relies on earlier work by Mark Niemiec, David Buckingham, Dieter Leithner, Martin Grant, and Evin.
July 23-25: Goldtiger997 and KtT complete a synthesis for 35P4H1V1 in 41 gliders. This was the last known unsynthesised spaceship up to 35 bits, and leaves 8 known ships up to 37 bits that are currently unsynthesised.
July 20: Goldtiger997 and KtT complete a synthesis for the previously unbuildable 37P4H1V1.2, in 49 gliders.
July 19: enofet posts a revised 2D memory storage device, capable of being plugged in to calculator mechanisms in place of the much larger and slower 'SQ' unit in Osqrtlogt, which was constructed with 2010-era technology (no syringes and no Snarks).
July 17: New contributor enofet completes a period-67108864 (2²⁶) gun for c/11 Speed Demonoids -- definitely the first gun created for a c/11 spaceship!
July 14: May13 completes a 139-glider synthesis for a 42-cell c/3 spaceship, 42P3H1V0; this is the first new c/3 spaceship synthesized since 2022.
July 12: Goldtiger997 constructs the final step of a glider synthesis|synthesis for 34P5H2V0, and vilc subsequently completes the synthesis in 52 gliders (since reduced to 40 gliders). With a minimum population of 34 cells, 34P5H2V0 was the smallest known spaceship without a known glider synthesis. This leaves 35P4H1V1 and a handful of overweight spaceship flotillas as the current smallest known unsynthesised spaceships.
July 10: Caleb R. Hilton discovers a new elementary Herschel conduit, the third conduit with an "F150" rating; it has a repeat time of 136, due to using the Herschel's first natural block for cleanup rather than suppressing it.
July 9: David Bell uses a new backward Cordership rake to improve the minpop record for a moving sawtooth from 540 cells to 374.
July 3-11: Dmitry Maitak and Chris857 reduce four remaining 13-glider syntheses to prove that all 16-bit still lifes can be synthesised with 12 or fewer gliders.
June 21: Gustone makes adjustments to leaf bug 2 to set separate new records in population ({{times|13179|6698}} at 24757 cells) and bounding box ({{times|12927|6576}} at 24814 cells); a further adjustment improves on both of those records, reaching {{times|12415|6315}} with population 24460.
June 7-14: A further set of design improvements allows Gustone to complete the leaf bug 2, a record-breaking small macro-spaceship by any metric -- smaller than the 0hd Demonoid in population (26571 vs. 27250) and smaller than the water strider in bounding box ({{times|13339|7107}} vs. {{times|14023|7309}}).
June 1: David Bell constructs an adjustable-period Cordership-based puffer with a new record minimum population of 249 cells.
May 28-29: shuich01 discovers the first width-25 gutter-symmetric 2c/7 spaceship. This is the minimum possible width for a period-7 2c/7 ship with this symmetry type. iNoMed subsequently combines a component from this ship with older 2c/7 components to construct an asymmetric ship which, in terms of its minimum population of 123 cells, is the smallest known 2c/7 ship that does not involve a weekender.
May 21: iNoMed discovers Blackjack, a 40-celled 'almost-glide-symmetric' p21 oscillator whose two parts shift a block diagonally in opposite directions with uneven phase shifts, similar to David Hilbert.
May 18: b3s23love creates a {{times|13|13}} "artificial soup" producing a 2-engine Cordership together with debris; the previous predecessor with the smallest bounding box was {{times|14|14}}.
May 15-17: David Bell modifies sawtooth 195 (the smallest known sawtooth by bounding box at {{times|62|56}}) to start at {{times|57|55}}. Entity Valkyrie, David Bell and EvinZL reduce this to a final bounding box of {{times|48|50}}.
May 14: Mitchell Riley uses a different hack to find 1558 new 2-glider still life conversion components, and 14608 3-glider components; upon running the transfer.py script, this is expected to reduce a significant number of syntheses.
May 11: Mitchell Riley uses a hacked QuFince fork to discover reductions to various syntheses, most notably paperclip quad 10G->8G, Cyclic 9G->8G, cha cha 12G->10G, scrubber with four covers 23G->16G, and square on four griddles 28G->20G.
March 9 - May 16: Nick Poyntz (in Catagolue comments) finds a 50-glider synthesis for quadruple eater 2 (a patch of the tablecloth), which DroneBetter, PK22 and KtT successively reduce to 28 gliders.
April 16: David Bell reduces a previous population-624 moving sawtooth to produce a variant with a repeating minimum population of 584.
April 12: Shuich01 and iNoMed discover a small lobster tagalong. This gives the first new period-7 c/7 diagonal spaceship since 2011.
April 6-7: David Bell constructs a sawtooth with a new record minimum repeating population of 168 cells.
April 3: 400spartans sets another new record for the smallest known unsynthesizable still life, now down from 162 cells to 154 cells, with a Unique_father_problem#Reductions|self-forcing patch containing 251 cells instead of 272 cells.
April 1: Entity Valkyrie constructs a "corner highway robber", a new design where gliders coming from two possible perpendicular directions are detected by the same bait beehive.
April 1: Keith Amling constructs the first 2c/5 orthogonal Greyship#Types_of_greyships|against-the-grain greyship. Although this greyship uses patches of with-the-grain stripes, it differs from the hybrid greyship in that all with-the-grain patches have a bounded size, while the against-the-grain patch can be made arbitrarily large.
March 26: 400spartans discovers the first gun#True-period_guns|true period-18 glider gun, based on a partial result by Period1GliderGun
March 22: 400spartans discovers the first period-14 independent reflector, based on a partial result by James Pascua and Matthias Merzenich.
March 21: Matthias Merzenich discovers the first period-15 independent reflector, based on a partial result by James Pascua.
March 16: Matthias Merzenich discovers the first gun#True-period_guns|true period-14 glider gun. This is the smallest possible gun period.
March 11: Keith Amling constructs a hybrid 2c/5 greyship. This is the first 2c/5 greyship with an extensible against-the-grain section.
March 4: Period1GliderGun discovers a period-47 glider gun based on a partial result by Caleb R. Hilton that is 85% smaller than the previous record holder.
February 23: Matthias Merzenich reduces the bounding box of the period-35 glider gun significantly, using LLS to find smaller component p5 and p7 sparkers.
February 20: Caleb R. Hilton discovers a record-breaking small period-60 glider gun which, after being combined with a p8 filter and reduced by iNoMed and hotcrystal0, gives a true period p120 glider gun that is smaller than the true-period single-barreled Simkin glider gun.
February 17: Chris Rowett's LifeViewer celebrates its ten-year anniversary.
February 11-20: Manual and semi-manual searches, as well as search programs like Mitchell Riley's LightCone, continue to turn up new Spartan conduits such as HL226B, HF78B, and HLx86B; some of these are fairly compact and potentially useful in self-constructing circuitry, since they fill long-standing holes in toolkits used for adjusting timing parity and/or output color.
February 12: Keith Amling discovers the first 2c/5 orthogonal chicken wire greyship.
February 8: iNoMed constructs a record-breaking small period-80 HWSS gun based on a new p80 R-pentomino hassler by Caleb R. Hilton. This gun has the unusual property of being gliderless.
February 7: Matthias Merzenich uses Logic Life Search to reduce the p28 glider gun, making it the tenth period with a true-period gun smaller than the single-barreled Simkin glider gun.
February 6: Matthias Merzenich uses Logic Life Search to complete a single-engine p57 glider gun based on a partial result by ElijahKen. Subsequent reductions by Merzenich, ElijahKen, iNoMed, and vilc result in a single-engine gun that is 45% smaller than the previous 2-engine gun.
February 3: Keith Amling discovers and vilc synthesises a new 32-cell 2c/4 orthogonal spaceship.
February 1: Entity Valkyrie synthesises LWSS pulling Unnamed tagalong 23P4H2V0. At 32 cells, this was the smallest known spaceship without a previously known glider synthesis.
January 29-31: A flurry of activity produces a transparent-loaf-themed highway robber with record-breaking recovery time of 550 ticks, overclocking|overclockable to 537-544, with a suggested mechanism by Tawal and contributions by Louis-François Handfield, Caleb R. Hilton, confocaloid, EvinZL, and Entity Valkyrie.
January 31-February 2: FWKnightship invents a novel mechanism for a new 31c/240 self-supporting spaceship, the water strider; over the next few days, the bounding box is then gradually reduced by more than half.
January 28: TigerCub414 discovers a 19-glider synthesis for 32P4H2V0. This leaves LWSS pulling Unnamed tagalong 23P4H2V0 as the only currently known spaceship up to 32 cells without a known glider synthesis.
January 18: 400spartans discovers a new record smallest-population unsynthesizable still life, population 162, with 271 specified cells in the self-forcing patch (124 ON, 147 OFF); this exactly ties the previous 271-cell record for total specified cells.
January 18: An apgsearch haul by 'ASA-X Supercomputer' contains the first natural appearance of long^9 snake from an asymmetric soup, almost a decade after the first occurrence of long^8 snake which currently has two dozen C1 occurrences.
January 18: iNoMed uses a small period-30 sparker to reduce the areas of the classic period-690 glider gun and the period-360 glider gun by double-digit percentages.
January 8: Frank Everdij discovers tarantula, a c/5 orthogonal spaceship which, in terms of its minimum population of {{cells|58}} cells, is tied with spider as the smallest known spaceship of this speed.

This was a quick bulk conversion using ChatGPT. I've only spot-checked, but on a quick review it looks like ChatGPT has stuck to the simplest possible MediaWiki -> PHPBB format conversion, as it promised.