Is there a naming convention for gliders?

[ricehyena]

Figuring out how to intelligently smash gliders into each other seems to be an important part of this life stuff.

Has anyone worked out a form of notation to describe the timing and position of two (or more) gliders that are going to collide? I've seen people use ASCII to draw small patterns, but I was thinking that something more like chess notation or a relative coordinate system would be better to describe the offset of any two gliders.

Here are some problems I can foresee in trying to make this notation system:

• There is only one glider life-form, but there are two glider patterns. And,when you take into account all of the ways you can rotate and reflect the patterns, you have 16 different shapes to potentially describe.
• You have to pick a cell somewhere in the glider's bounding box to measure from. You could measure from the single-pixel "tail" on the back of the glider, but that is not very close to the collision point. You could measure from the leading corner of the bounding box, but that might be unintuitive because it is empty space half of the time.
• Obviously, this would hardly be useful for describing those 82 glider-collision monstrosities that people have found. If this is helpful at all, it will only be helpful for describing small reactions or small regions of large reactions.

So, would this sort of thing even be helpful? If so, does anyone have any ideas for what it might look like?

[Extrementhusiast]

Yes, I do have an idea. Measure from the center of the glider's bounding box. Then identify the direction: NW, NE, SW, or SE. Then figure out whether or not the leading corner is filled; use "f" (fast) if it is, and "s" (slow) if it is not. Finally, identify the orientation relative to the diagonal as "h" (horizontal) or "v" (vertical), using the following scheme:

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H.......
.O...O..
..O...OO
OOO..OO.
........
V.......
..O..O.O
O.O...OO
.OO...O.

Put coordinates in parentheses, and put + signs in between gliders.

For example:

Code: Select all

(5,4)SWfh + (3,-5)NWsv

codes for

Code: Select all

x = 7, y = 12, rule = B3/S23
5bo$4bo$4b3o3$o4$3bo$2b2o$2bobo!

The single dot is the origin.

This system is very redundant, but at least it's pretty simple.

[ricehyena]

That sounds pretty good, but could you help me understand what you mean by "orientation to the diagonal?"


Edit:

I like your idea of measuring from the middle and of starting the description with a compass direction.

Would there be any downside if it were understood that the first glider described starts at the origin? Then you would only need to give one coordinate pair for the other glider and you might get a better sense for how long it will take for them to intercept.

Your example would then be SWfh + NWev(-2,-9)

Thanks for your reply! It would be awesome if something like this could become a standard.

[Extrementhusiast]

I thought I provided an example.

[ricehyena]

I thought I provided an example.

You did. It was a good post, I'm just having a little trouble understanding what you mean when you say "diagonal."

By diagonal, do you mean something in the glider's shape, something relative to the direction of travel, or something else?

[Extrementhusiast]

Relative to direction of travel.