ConwayLife.com

Posted: **October 12th, 2024, 2:16 am**

Searching through archived "out.txt" (before 2024-01-13) gives the following ways to refer to the foxclock (with "foxclock" being the most common name before that date at least):

"foxclock" (5 occurrences)
"fox+clock" (2 occurrences)
"fox-and-clock" (1 occurrence)

On the forums, foxclock has at least 5 more occurrences (not counting this post).

Questions:

Are there any other ways to refer to foxclock in use, besides those listed above?
Why the wiki page got moved away from the name "foxclock"?
Does the discoverer have a preference on the naming of this pattern?

Sokwe wrote: December 10th, 2020, 2:38 am A potentially useful period-2 catalyst consisting of a fox and clock was found by Goldtiger997 on 14 Mar 2020 in an attempt to find a period-2 bumper:
Code: Select all
x = 18, y = 17, rule = B3/S23
15bo$15bobo$15b2o2$4bo$2bobo$3bobo$3bo$9b2o$4bo3bo2bo$4bo4bobo$obo2bo
4bo$o$o2b2o9b2o$14bo$b3o11b3o$17bo!
It was noted at some point (not sure where, originally) that this reaction can delete a beehive:
Code: Select all
x = 13, y = 11, rule = B3/S23
8bo$8bo$7bo2bo$2bo8b2o$obo3bobo$bobo2bobobo$bo4bo2$4bo$4b2o$5bo!
I suspect there are other uses for this catalyst.

Goldtiger997 wrote: March 14th, 2020, 2:35 am Failed p2 bumper:
Code: Select all
x = 18, y = 17, rule = B3/S23
15bo$15bobo$15b2o2$4bo$2bobo$3bobo$3bo$9b2o$4bo3bo2bo$4bo4bobo$obo2bo
4bo$o$o2b2o9b2o$14bo$b3o11b3o$17bo! [[ STOP 39 ]]

Posted: **October 12th, 2024, 2:28 am**

confocaloid wrote: October 12th, 2024, 2:16 am [*] Why the wiki page got moved away from the name "foxclock"?

I moved it because there were no new mentions of foxclock as of late, most of the new posts simply saying fox and clock. Furthermore, before the addition of the page, there was no mention of the one-word "foxclock" on the wiki, instead using the two-letter instead.

Furthermore, "foxclock" is more difficult to search for as typing "clock" will not work, and fox and clock is used throughout the wiki. I wanted to keep the terminology constant for easier browsing.

Posted: **October 12th, 2024, 2:36 am**

Haycat2009 wrote: October 12th, 2024, 2:28 am [...] most of the new posts simply saying fox and clock. [...]

I cannot confirm this claim.
From what I can find and read, there's only one earlier forum post saying "fox and clock" (I quoted that post above).

Also from what I can find and read, "foxclock" is the most common name so far.

Haycat2009 wrote: October 12th, 2024, 2:28 am [...] Furthermore, "foxclock" is more difficult to search for as typing "clock" will not work, [...]

I think that's somewhat ridiculous reasoning. Single-word names are easier to search, not harder. (E.g. try forum search for two separate words "fox clock" vs. single word "foxclock".)

Posted: **October 12th, 2024, 6:03 am**

confocaloid wrote: October 12th, 2024, 2:36 am ... from what I can find and read, "foxclock" is the most common name so far.

This is true on Discord as well.

I've gone ahead and moved the article to "Foxclock" -- removing the original article's CamelCase naming, but still leaving me feeling somehow as if I'm suddenly reading a Dr. Seuss book.

Posted: **October 12th, 2024, 1:07 pm**

I like the FoxClock.

How can I not like the FoxClock.

I was familiar with the P2 Oscillator Clock.

But I had no idea there was also a Fox -

put them together and presto

you learn something new every day around here...

Posted: **October 13th, 2024, 2:20 am**

I feel that the name "Foxclock" sounds wrong. This is a scientific forum.

Scientists try to make complicated concepts understandable, but poets do the exact opposite. This makes the name feel ironic - could we not have merged these 2 words when there are many other constellations consisting of fox and clock?

Posted: **October 13th, 2024, 2:27 am**

Methinks you are confusing two different things:

Names of specific particular things (i.e. specific patterns, specific reactions, specific CA, etc.)
Terms for general concepts (e.g. spaceship, oscillator, still life, cellular automaton, etc.)

Names of specific things don't need to be logical. If some community just so happens to commonly use "Sus Flamingoship Thingamajig" to refer to a single very specific CA (whose rulestring is otherwise too complicated to mention in this forum post), in a widely understood and uncontroversial way, then so be it.

On the other hand, terms for general concepts work much better when each of those terms is self-explanatory, intuitively understandable in a way that agrees with common sense, and suggests the correct picture in the mind and otherwise helps understanding.

Haycat2009 wrote: October 13th, 2024, 2:20 am I feel that the name "Foxclock" sounds wrong. This is a scientific forum.

Scientists try to make complicated concepts understandable, but poets do the exact opposite. This makes the name feel ironic - could we not have merged these 2 words when there are many other constellations consisting of fox and clock?

Posted: **October 15th, 2024, 7:32 am**

What's the smallest possible stabilization for the p2 rotor at the center of this unstable pattern, if one actually exists?

Code: Select all

x = 10, y = 10, rule = B3/S23
2b3o$5bo$2b3o2bobo$3b2ob2obo$bo4b2obo$ob2o4bo$ob2ob2o$obo2b3o$4bo$5b3o
!

Posted: **October 15th, 2024, 7:54 am**

muzik wrote: October 15th, 2024, 7:32 am What's the smallest possible stabilization for the p2 rotor at the center of this unstable pattern, if one actually exists?
Code: Select all
x = 10, y = 10, rule = B3/S23
2b3o$5bo$2b3o2bobo$3b2ob2obo$bo4b2obo$ob2o4bo$ob2ob2o$obo2b3o$4bo$5b3o
!

Assuming you meant the 4x4 box in the middle, this is the smallest symmetric solution by bounding box according to JLS.

Code: Select all

x = 14, y = 14, rule = LifeHistory
2.2A$2.A2.2A$3.A.A.A2.A.2A$2.2A3.A2.2A.A$5.2A.A$4.A2CDCA.2A$2.2A.3DCA
2.A$.A2.AC3D.2A$.2A.ACD2CA$5.A.2A$A.2A2.A3.2A$2A.A2.A.A.A$7.2A2.A$10.
2A!

Posted: **October 19th, 2024, 7:44 pm**

Instead of letting every cell be either alive (1) or dead (0), one could let every cell be alive with some probability. Otherwise, the rules remain exactly the same as in the usual Conway's Game of Life.

The objects from CGoL are preserved, for example the block remains a still life:

Code: Select all

However, there are other objects, for example I think the following is also a "still life" when p ~ 0.767591879...

Code: Select all

What is known about this?
The above example can be viewed as a variant of the block; are there "probabilistic objects" that are not merely variants of objects from CGoL?

Posted: **October 20th, 2024, 12:49 pm**

is HRx93E notable enough for its own page?

Posted: **October 20th, 2024, 1:20 pm**

C28 wrote: October 20th, 2024, 12:49 pm is HRx93E notable enough for its own page?

It's currently redlinked from the main page (Special:WhatLinksHere/HRx93E). Although a mention like this doesn't automatically prove notability for a separate page (LW:NB).

I suggest to check the forum search ( search.php?keywords=HRx93E ), would these posts suffice to write a page?

Ideally, a better solution would be a searchable database for conduits, where most of the human-readable information on the displayed page would be autogenerated from a machine-readable source. Then wiki pages for the majority of conduits would be unnecessary, unless the conduit is historically interesting or otherwise deserves a wiki page (Conduit 1, R64, Snark, ...)

Posted: **October 22nd, 2024, 11:42 am**

C28 wrote: May 1st, 2024, 8:25 am is there anything stopping me from naming the L141 conduit "Lucy"?

As the co-finder of the conduit, I don’t not approve of naming said conduit, or any conduits. For consistency, of course.

Posted: **October 22nd, 2024, 11:55 am**

Earlier relevant discussion:
viewtopic.php?p=183956#p183956
viewtopic.php?p=184109#p184109

I think new conduits shouldn't get any non-systematic names at this point. There are too many known conduits to name all of them, and no good reason to name only some of them while leaving others unnamed.

AlbertArmStain wrote: October 22nd, 2024, 11:42 am
C28 wrote: May 1st, 2024, 8:25 am is there anything stopping me from naming the L141 conduit "Lucy"?
As the co-finder of the conduit, I don’t not approve of naming said conduit, or any conduits. For consistency, of course.

Posted: **October 23rd, 2024, 11:12 am**

Code: Select all

x = 5, y = 4, rule = B3/S23
2o$o2b2o$2bobo$b2o!

is this a Coolout conjecture solution? if so, can it be reduced?

Posted: **October 23rd, 2024, 12:00 pm**

get_Snacked wrote: October 23rd, 2024, 11:12 am
Code: Select all
x = 5, y = 4, rule = B3/S23
2o$o2b2o$2bobo$b2o!
is this a Coolout conjecture solution? if so, can it be reduced?

It might be a matter of interpretation, but I'd say that doesn't count as a Coolout Conjecture solution, and I don't see how to reduce it to make it into one.

Code: Select all

x = 5, y = 7, rule = LifeHistory

2A3B$ABD2A$2BABA$B2A2B$2.C$2.C.C$3.2C!

#C [[ THUMBNAIL THUMBSIZE 3 ]]

The east and west edges aren't a problem, and there's a stabilization for the south edge too. The problem is the red cell.

A Coolout Conjecture solution has to be "internally consistent with being part of a still life (i.e. each cell can be stabilized individually by a boundary cell)" ... but the red cell is not stable -- it's supposed to stay OFF, but it wants to turn ON. It's not next to a boundary cell (i.e., a cell in the pattern's bounding box) so there's no possible way that it can be stabilized no matter what boundary cells are added.

So the blue-and-green 3x4 patch above is not internally consistent with being part of a still life.

Posted: **October 23rd, 2024, 12:30 pm**

dvgrn wrote: October 23rd, 2024, 12:00 pm A Coolout Conjecture solution has to be "internally consistent with being part of a still life (i.e. each cell can be stabilized individually by a boundary cell)" ... but the red cell is not stable -- it's supposed to stay OFF, but it wants to turn ON.

sorry, i meant counterexample. (i had said "solution" for the lack of a better word.)

Posted: **October 23rd, 2024, 2:23 pm**

get_Snacked wrote: October 23rd, 2024, 12:30 pm
dvgrn wrote: October 23rd, 2024, 12:00 pm A Coolout Conjecture solution has to be "internally consistent with being part of a still life (i.e. each cell can be stabilized individually by a boundary cell)" ... but the red cell is not stable -- it's supposed to stay OFF, but it wants to turn ON.
sorry, i meant counterexample. (i had said "solution" for the lack of a better word.)

"Counterexample" is fine -- I should really have used that term as well. Instead I just copied the term you used, since I figured that that would be understandable.

If you replace "solution" with "counterexample", everything I said remains true:

the pattern you quoted is _not_ a counterexample to the Coolout Conjecture, because it doesn't match the "given" part of the conjecture.

Posted: **October 23rd, 2024, 3:45 pm**

What was the original formulation of Coolout Conjecture, when it was first stated?

Currently, the wiki entry begins with the following formulation:

wiki wrote:Given a partial Life pattern that's internally consistent with being part of a still life (i.e. each cell can be stabilized individually by a boundary cell), is there always a way to add a stabilizing boundary?

There is a reply on the talk page, noting vagueness of that wording:

77topaz wrote:The phrase "internally consistent with being part of a still life" is rather vague. I think it should be rephrased to make it clearer which patterns are or are not eligible. 77topaz (talk) 03:58, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

It is possible to read "a partial Life pattern" as meaning "a set of cells whose states are specified, with states of all others cells in the universe left unspecified".
It is possible to read "a boundary cell" as meaning "a cell whose state is left unspecified with at least one neighbour whose state is specified".
This does not require any particular shape of the set of cells whose states are specified, or even connectedness.

get_Snacked wrote: October 23rd, 2024, 11:12 am
Code: Select all
x = 5, y = 4, rule = B3/S23
2o$o2b2o$2bobo$b2o!
is this a Coolout conjecture solution? if so, can it be reduced?

get_Snacked wrote: October 23rd, 2024, 12:30 pm [...] sorry, i meant counterexample. (i had said "solution" for the lack of a better word.)

Posted: **October 23rd, 2024, 5:30 pm**

confocaloid wrote: October 23rd, 2024, 3:45 pm What was the original formulation of Coolout Conjecture, when it was first stated?

I'm not sure anyone can retrieve the original wording at this point; the wiki article has pretty much everything known about the conjecture.

"originally formulated before 1992" means that it's not in LifeCA email archives (that group was started in 1992).

The "locally stable over a rectangle R" formulation in the wiki article came from a 1992 rewording by Alan Wechsler, for a list of fifteen Life-universe open problems analogous to David Hilbert's twenty-three:

(EDIT: sixteen open problems and questions, actually -- I didn't notice the list starts with zero!)

From: Allan Wechsler
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1992 11:01-0400
Subject: Missions

I think this is the first time that so many influential Life hackers
have had such fast access to a common forum. Wouldn't it be a good
occasion to restate some of the most outstanding problems? Here are a
few that spring to mind:

0. Provide a coherent, intuitive, rigorizable account of what
constitutes a Life "object".

1. Life is known to be universal. Write a compiler whose target is
Life.

2. Find a stable pattern that is its own only predecessor.

3. Prove the existence of oscillators of all positive integral periods.

4. Prove the existence of gliders of all velocities permitted by
2(dx+dy)<=dt.

5. Characterize the functions F(t) such that Life patterns exist whose
populations grow as O(F(t)). Provide explicit examples where possible.

6. Find the smallest area containing a pattern with no predecessor.

7. Find the minimal population for a pattern with no predecessor.

8. Provide bounds for the maximum period of an oscillator that fits at all
phases into an XxY rectangle.

9. Provide bounds for the maximum period of an oscillator that fits at
some phase into an XxY rectangle. In particular, consider X=1.

10. Demonstrate the existence of a pattern which possesses parents but
no grandparents.

11. Provide a statistical but rigorous account of the end state of
randomly initialized universes. Characterize "fires" and "quiet areas"
and provide probabilistic analyses of the prevalence of these two phases
with time.

12. Prove Schroeppel's "Cool Out" conjecture: if a configuration C is
locally stable over a rectangle R, then there exists a configuration C*
such that (a) C* is locally equal to C over R; and (b) C* is globally
stable.

13. For what oscillation regimes other than stability is an analog of
Schroeppel's Conjecture true?

14. Settle the question of how many distinct three-glider collisions
there are.

15. Does there exist a finite stable pattern which can defend itself
against any single glider?

Rich Schroeppel never objected to the limitation to rectangular areas, so it's at least a reasonable guess that the original conjecture was also intended to deal with rectangular areas, with a boundary region around them to be used for stabilization. And notice that in 1992 people seemed fairly confident that the conjecture would eventually be proven rather than disproven:

From: Allan Wechsler
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 18:17-0400
Subject: Re: Infinite p2 with density 1/2

John Conway wrote: Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 09:45 EDT
From: John Conway

Thanks - it seems likely that any simple infinite still-life or flip-flop
can probably be bordered so as to become finite?
For the period-1 case this is Schroeppel's "Cool Out" conjecture. My
phrasing was: if you have any configuration C with a rectangle R that is
unchanged in the successor (that is, C is locally stable over R), then
you can build a configuration C' with finite support, that is equal to C
over R and is globally stable.

John Conway wrote: I hope at any rate that
you can finish this one off.
It certainly seems as if only a finite repertoire of fringe textures
would be necessary to prove the conjecture.

However, the claim that Conway's period-1 case is the same as Schroeppel's Coolout Conjecture doesn't entirely pan out. You can't make an infinite still life out of the counterexample that Schroeppel eventually found. So the Coolout Conjecture is apparently a (mistaken) claim about a larger set of patterns than just rectangular subsets of infinite still lifes.

Posted: **October 24th, 2024, 1:22 am**

very basic question here

what is the oldest known HoneyFarm Predecessor in number of Generations ( or ticks )

Posted: **October 24th, 2024, 6:30 am**

otismo wrote: October 24th, 2024, 1:22 am [...] what is the oldest known HoneyFarm Predecessor in number of Generations ( or ticks )

Several 2-glider collisions are honey farm predecessors. Each of those collisions is naturally rewindable arbitrarily far back in time, by "rolling the gliders back". It makes sense to say that all of resulting ways of rewinding those collisions are automatically "known", as soon as the collision reaction is "known" and "known to be rewindable". It follows that there's no "oldest known" HF predecessor, as long as by "oldest" you mean "highest lifespan".

In case gliders happen to be forbidden, here's a gliderless way of obtaining arbitrarily long lived honey farm predecessors, which is rather 'angelic' in that it involves an angel hitting a block:

Code: Select all

x = 37, y = 27, rule = B3/S23
9b2o$8bo2bo$2o7b2obo$2o8bo2bo$8bobo3bo$8b2o5bo$16bo$17bo$18bo$19bo$20b
o$21bo$22bo$23bo$24bo$25bo$26bo$27bo$28bo$29bo$30bo$31bo$32bo$33bo$34b
o$35bo$36bo!

Posted: **October 24th, 2024, 9:28 am**

Do "strong-sparking billiard tables" exist?

The strong sparks don't need to be accessible.

Posted: **October 24th, 2024, 10:04 am**

Citation needed wrote: October 24th, 2024, 9:28 am Do "strong-sparking billiard tables" exist?

Not a useful one, as a strong spark would make it not a billiard table.

Is this cheating?

Code: Select all

x = 22, y = 27, rule = B3/S23
17b2o$17b2o2$3b2ob2ob2ob2ob4o$3bob2ob2ob2ob2o2bo$b2o16b2o$bo18bo$2bo
16bo$b2o16b2o$bo18bo$2bo16bo$b2o7b2o7b2o$bo3b2obo4bob2o3bo$2bo2bo10bo
2bo$b2o3b2o6b2o3b2o$3b3o2b6o2b3o$3bo2bo8bo2bo$4b2o10b2o$b3o14b3o$o2bo
14bo2bo$bo18bo$2b4ob2ob2ob2ob4o$4bob2ob2ob2ob2o$18b2o$19bo$18bo$18b2o!

Posted: **October 24th, 2024, 2:13 pm**

confocaloid wrote: October 24th, 2024, 6:30 am
otismo wrote: October 24th, 2024, 1:22 am [...] what is the oldest known HoneyFarm Predecessor in number of Generations ( or ticks )
Several 2-glider collisions are honey farm predecessors. Each of those collisions is naturally rewindable arbitrarily far back in time, by "rolling the gliders back". It makes sense to say that all of resulting ways of rewinding those collisions are automatically "known", as soon as the collision reaction is "known" and "known to be rewindable". It follows that there's no "oldest known" HF predecessor, as long as by "oldest" you mean "highest lifespan".

In case gliders happen to be forbidden, here's a gliderless way of obtaining arbitrarily long lived honey farm predecessors, which is rather 'angelic' in that it involves an angel hitting a block:
Code: Select all
x = 37, y = 27, rule = B3/S23
9b2o$8bo2bo$2o7b2obo$2o8bo2bo$8bobo3bo$8b2o5bo$16bo$17bo$18bo$19bo$20b
o$21bo$22bo$23bo$24bo$25bo$26bo$27bo$28bo$29bo$30bo$31bo$32bo$33bo$34b
o$35bo$36bo!

Thank You

reason I asked is a lot has been made of HoneyFarm Hassling

so we want predecessors that "beehave" - develop/morph

tightly within a bounding box that contains the entire

progression - from beginning to end - all phases...

Code: Select all

x = 6, y = 8, rule = B3/S23
3bo$2bobo$b2ob2o$b3o$3o$4b2o$o$o!

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