ConwayLife.com

The rules:

• You can vote for as many patterns as you want, but please order them from best to worst.
• You can vote for your own patterns.
• The first string of your post should contain only the numbers of patterns you vote for. If you do not want to vote in your post, put "NO VOTE" in the first line.
• The deadline for this competition is February 1st, 00:00 London time.

The entries:

• #1 Elementary Conduits Collection, recently significantly expanded with new discoveries, is a one-stop shop for the building blocks of stable tracks. It was organized to catalogue all converters between likely active reactions, not just from Herschel to Herschel. By Matthias Merzenich, Dave Greene, and Thunk.
• #2 Quadratic Sawtooth is a sawtooth whose population peaks grow quadratically. By Martin Grant, Aidan F. Pierce, Dongook Lee, and Alexey Nigin.
• #3 Recursive Filter allows the creation of extremely slow-growing patterns. A single recursive filter gives the growth rate of log*(t), which is slower than the growth rate of any pattern constructed before. Recursive filters can be stacked to obtain even more mind-boggling growth rates. By Alexey Nigin and Kiran Linsuain.
• #4 Sawtooth 177 is currently the smallest known sawtooth. By Thunk, Tanner Jacobi, Chris Cain, Adam P. Goucher, and Dave Greene.
• #5 H-to-MWSS is the smallest converter of Herschels into (non-glider) standard spaceships. Prior constructions of XWSSs required many Herschel tracks and a large area. By Tanner Jacobi.
• #6 HBK Gun is an extremely large and complex gun that fires parallel HBKs. It is the only gun to produce non-self-constructing macro-spaceships. By Chris Cain and Michael Simkin.
• #7 Collection of Guns is an ambitious project to collect new smaller glider guns using the syringe and other recent discoveries. All guns in the range 78-999 were eventually reduced to bounding boxes less than 8000 cells. By Chris Cain, simeks, Scot Ellison, and Dave Greene.
• #8 G-to-Weekender splits a single input glider into 82 separate signals, and successfully synchronizes them to produce an output weekender spaceship. The previous record synchronization was Goucher's glider-to-Cordership converter, which produced 19 synchronized gliders from one input signal. By Chris Cain.
• #9 Bob Shemyakin's Syntheses are often cheaper than what could be found in Mark Niemiec's database (and those were already pretty good). This was the result of a lot of patient script-writing and collecting collision results, starting with adding two gliders (within a certain range) to every possible two-glider collision. Many new 4-, 5-, and 6-glider still life recipes were found, and optimizations for many larger still lifes up to 15 bits. By Bob Shemyakin.
• #10 Dragon Lightsaber is a misterious pattern that seems to calculate some sequence. It is this type of a lightsaber. By Martin Grant.
• #11 [L|M]WSS-to-G is the second known small conduit that turns standard spaceships into gliders, and the first that accepts LWSSs. By Ivan Fomichev and Dongook Lee.
• #12 t*log(log(t)) Growth is pattern with an exotic growth rate. That growth rate has long been achievable via exponential filters, but this pattern utilises a completely different design. By Alexey Nigin and Michael Simkin.
• #13 Syringe is the fast G-to-H that Herschel plumbers have been wishing for a decade, also allowing for fast signal splitters and other much more efficient logic circuits, including self-constructing circuitry. By Tanner Jacobi.
• #14 Demonoids are highly-simplified, diagonally-moving variants of the original Gemini spaceship. The 0hd Demonoid is the only case where a spaceship gun pattern was completed before the actual spaceship. By Chris Cain and Dave Greene.
• #15 Simkin Glider Gun is the smallest gun ever constructed. The previous record holder, Gosper glider gun, was constructed as long ago as 1970. By Michael Simkin.
• #16 Syntheses of B29, X66, half-X66 with HWSS, Pushalong 1, 25P3H1V0.2, 30P5H2V0, 30P4H2V0.4, a pufferfish spaceship, and the weekender were discovered in 2015, which exceeds the number of spaceship syntheses found in any previous year, including 1970. By Martin Grant, Tanner Jacobi, and Chris Cain.
• #17 Single-Lane Construction Arm Toolkit is an important result for simplifying self-constructing circuitry, especially those where a recipe needs to be duplicated, as in the linear propagator, not just interpreted as in the Demonoid and Gemini. By simeks.

11, 15, 8, 16

13, 8, 5, 3, 2.

I'm finding that it's really hard to compare single patterns with pattern collections. I didn't end up voting for any of the multi-pattern entries. Collectively many of them are quite impressive, but it seemed like they belonged in in a separate contest for "Pattern Collection of the Year", or something.

Then it's equally apples-and-oranges difficult to compare new component discoveries like the syringe and H->MWSS and L|MWSS->G, against ambitious engineered constructions made by stringing together large numbers of those basic components.

I really like the G->weekender converter. Talk about ambitious! It would have been reasonable to start with a G->loafer and work up gradually... but no, might as well skip ahead to one of the most expensive spaceship syntheses out there (not counting the macro-spaceships, anyway.)

On the other hand, the syringe was a real Holy Grail level discovery, something that people have been looking for since long before there was a weekender. And the G-to-weekender probably wouldn't have gotten done without it -- there are hundreds of syringes in there.

NO VOTE
... Yet.
I think Alexey is making the voting process automated? Thus the first line restriction?

Yesterday, I think I saw a "vote" tab next to the "upload assignment" tab. I don't see it now. Did anyone spot that? Did I see just a testing beta or what was that??

13, 15, 14, 3, 16, 8, 1, 2

I tried to vote with the mindset of "this pattern/accomplishment helped make 2015 a groundbreaking year." The Simkin glider gun and syringe are two fantastic examples of elegant discoveries made from the current edge of the available search space, and many of 2015's other discoveries used one or the other.

The Demonoid project reduced the complexity of the original Gemini to something digestible (at least to me), giving me and I hope others a better appreciation/understanding of the elegance of Life's self-construction (and self-destruction) abilities.

The Recursive Filter is an amazing design that I'm glad got the explanation it deserved from Adam's explanatory post, because it was a bit hard to reason with t-gaps so large that hyperspeed wasn't even illuminating.

The spaceship syntheses got me excited, I think more so than any other variety of syntheses because of the ability to make a factory out of them.

The G-to-Weekender was a direct result of the synthesis effort so I believe cannot rightfully snipe a spot away from the synthesis, but definitely deserves mention due to its elegance.

The dive deeper into the understanding of catalysts and how to program with them unlocked some great conduits. I think the standouts deserve the top spot I gave them, but the entire effort deserves mention as well.

The quadratic sawtooth was a fun idea made into a good engineering project and I was happy to see it worked to completion.

Also I think apgsearch and apgnano gave a lot of life enthusiasts a new available outlet this year, and the catagolue has enabled further syntheses. These don't really have a place in the "pattern of the year" entry but Adam's work definitely fits my "this pattern/accomplishment helped make 2015 a groundbreaking year" criterion so I'll say it anyway.

14, 13, 15, 17, 3, 9, 10, 4, 1, 16, 7, 5, 2
Nice to select as many as I want.

14. The Demonoids were the most amitious and impressive project to me. Current Life technology seems to be heading towards Life Construction and replicators, and I think this illustrates the state-of-the-art technology in this field. I was pretty astonished that the size has become this small, compared to Gemini and other designs. Cheers to all the contributors, and good luck with the single-lane construction design!

13. Syringe is one of the small (in size) discoveries that totally changed the paradigm of signal circuitry. With this discovery, the signals in the circuitry changed from mostly Herschels to mostly gliders, and drastically reduced the size of signal devices as gliders can travel by itself without any catalyst support. And as everyone knows, it has influenced the design and reduced the size of the Demonoids and the gun collection.

15. Simkin Glider gun broke the record for the smallest glider gun that had been held for nearly 45? years. And nobody would have imagined that there existed a smaller glider gun before this discovery. That is impressive, has historical significance, and this even influences design of Life Construction projects with its simplicity and glider-constructibility.

17. Single Lane Construction Arm toolkit is a novel concept that seems to make the demonoids even lighter. I think the project when completed deserves first place, but considering that it's a work in progress, I think its place is here.

3. Recursive Filter solves one of the long-existed (but not well known) questions on the growth rate of Life patterns. Also it was one of the few projects that use the p30 circuitry, so I thought it was worthy here.

9. Shymakin's syntheses is an ongoing list of small still life syntheses. I think this one affected many still life and spaceship syntheses.

10. The Dragon Lightsaber seems to be underrated... Few seems to know how it works. (And I don't know how it works.) I'm not sure but I think dvgrn said that it was generating the dragon curve sequence??? It's one of the few projects in p46 technology, and I think this is worth it here.

1. Elementary Conduit Collection Most of the things, especially non-spartan things are doable with Syringes and Snarks, but Elementary conduits still have its place on spartan conduits. Also, it's meaningful in that it generalized signal carriers from Herschels to other methuselahs. I think it's underused than many think, as there is no Elemsrch... Hope that one comes out soon :)

4. Sawtooth 177 -- Nice to see that... Sad to see the Sawtooth 201's population up at OEIS...

16. Spaceship syntheses -- Congrats again to all, and I think glider syntheses is almost the last field remaining to be hand-made.

7. Gun collection

5. H-to-MWSS -- I think the direct H-to-MWSS is similar to the discovery of gliderless guns at that time. And I'm pretty sure the gliderless guns were pretty interesting at that time. (It's still interesting now.) Today we can make an H-to-MWSS by assembly, but this one's compact and the most construction-friendly. (I'm not sure if that does matter... Can we use MWSSs as construction tapes?)

2. Quadratic Sawtooth.

13, 7, 1, 15, 5, 11, 16

I think I probably have a heavy bias in favor of stable circuitry.

15, 13, 4, 17, 16, 3

This time I've voted according to which patterns I consider to be the most beautiful. So I've resisted voting for large, complex, Brobdingnagian constructions -- even though that's personally my area of expertise.

I give priority to 15 (Simkin's glider gun) and 13 (the syringe) because they're astonishingly small and incredibly useful. The reason for prioritising 15 over 13 is that the syringe contains a large, ugly still-life which slightly detracts from its elegance. Also, Simkin's glider gun is something I'm hoping to see appearing in the Catagolue within my lifetime.

The sawtooth, 4, also falls into the 'astonishingly small' category, and is a beautiful showcase of seemingly disparate areas of Life research (exotic spaceships, Herschel-based guns, and conventional p30/p15 technology) coöperating harmoniously. At the risk of sounding poetical, it has a somewhat multicultural flavour about it.

I think 17 is underrated. It's amazing that it's even possible to have a single-lane universal toolkit whose glider-spacings are compatible with the repeat time of the syringe. Actually, I think 17 and 13* are two sides of the same coin: stable technology and slow-salvo technology have become increasingly optimised to the miraculous point of seamless compatibility.

* 13 and 17 are also the periods of periodical cicadas, but that's entirely fortuitous: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periodical_cicadas

The syntheses, 16, continue to impress me. Some of them embody a long and complex story of how our protagonist Martin Grant battled against various obstacles in ingenious ways (such as by meticulously building a long fuse to laparoscopically inject a spark at the critical moment to an active site inaccessible by gliders). Others are either completely or partially inspired by results from Catagolue -- and since I'm totally useless at making glider syntheses myself, this is the only way in which I can contribute to the area.

I also include the recursive filter (3) for a multitude of reasons. Firstly, it's reminiscent of the Difference Engine -- but for successively computing sequences in the fast-growing hierarchy, rather than computing polynomials of increasing degree. It's just so beautifully mechanical.

Brett Berger wrote:Also I think apgsearch and apgnano gave a lot of life enthusiasts a new available outlet this year, and the catagolue has enabled further syntheses. These don't really have a place in the "pattern of the year" entry but Adam's work definitely fits my "this pattern/accomplishment helped make 2015 a groundbreaking year" criterion so I'll say it anyway.

Glad to have helped.

This project taught me, for the first time, how to create Java servlets, write optimised x86 assembly, use gcc/make/vim (so much less hassle than coding with an IDE), and manage a large-scale distributed computing effort. Also, the original apgsearch (in 2014) was the first time I'd ever attempted a particularly complex Python script. Finally, I'm now* learning GPU programming so as to make the search even faster. So I think this has been at least as helpful for my own experience as it has for GoL research.

* Technically on hold because I have another ambitious project with an impending deadline (2 weeks from now).

8, 14, 6, 3, 2

15,6,8,14,4,10,13,3,5,2,12,11

It was tempting to give a very high vote for #3 (the one pattern I contributed to) but I tried to be more fair.
In my humble opinion, collections of patterns are apples in a crate of oranges.
EDIT:
In I way, I am glad I can cast my vote without having to weight the merits of different patterns to infinite precision!

3, 17, 14, 12, 15, 2
If the voting system hasn't been solidified yet, I think that the first pattern in each vote should be given 1 point, the second should be given 2/3, the third should be given 2/3, etc. The nth should be given S^-1, where S is the partial sum of the first n terms of the harmonic series. I think this method is close enough to Zipf's law to be a semi-accurate representation of how much people favor patterns relative to each other, while decreasing slow enough to account for the fact that some people might have more than one favorite pattern and be forced to tie.
I also wonder whether there could be a poll to vote for the most exciting soup in Catagolue. I think it was the soup that made the yl4608, but I'd like to hear other people's opinions.

calcyman wrote:

biggiemac wrote:Also I think apgsearch and apgnano gave a lot of life enthusiasts a new available outlet this year, and the catagolue has enabled further syntheses. These don't really have a place in the "pattern of the year" entry but Adam's work definitely fits my "this pattern/accomplishment helped make 2015 a groundbreaking year" criterion so I'll say it anyway.

I agree. By the way, Calcyman, are you ever planning to publish Catagolue on Hacker News, or another such site?

13, 15, 14

15,13,14

NO VOTE
(since I've already voted)

I also wonder whether there could be a poll to vote for the most exciting soup in Catagolue. I think it was the soup that made the yl4608, but I'd like to hear other people's opinions.

There's also the soup which produces Berger's p30 (in addition to a LWSS).

And of course the life-saving #NaturalCoeShip was quite exciting. (Codeholic, did you receive a reply from the SCI?)

I agree. By the way, Calcyman, are you ever planning to publish Catagolue on Hacker News, or another such site?

Of course. Maybe for its anniversary on 20th February?

NO VOTE

gameoflifeboy wrote:I also wonder whether there could be a poll to vote for the most exciting soup in Catagolue. I think it was the soup that made the yl4608, but I'd like to hear other people's opinions.

I rather like the one that makes a MWSS on MWSS 1 and a double pulsar (although I don't know where it went, because the soup scores are no longer a thing).

NO VOTE

calcyman wrote:And of course the life-saving #NaturalCoeShip was quite exciting. (Codeholic, did you receive a reply from the SCI?)

Could you make the context here more explicit? Did you (plural) publish something?

(13, 14, 15), (16, 5, 11), (9, 6, 8, 17), (1, 7, 10), (3, 12), (4, 2). Bolded entries indicate assemblies (as opposed to discoveries), underlined entries indicate collections, and groups in parentheses indicate near ties.

At least for assemblies, I tended to order them from least to most understandable to the relative layman (i.e. understands basics of GoL and knows of micro-scale patterns, but doesn't know techniques other than "paste so that the input matches the previous output in space and time").

NO VOTE

Extrementhusiast wrote:Why not rate them all?

Well, only because you've gone and broken The Rules -- rule #3, specifically. It's not too late, though! It's so nice being able to edit one's old posts.

NO VOTE
Really, nobody saw the 'Vote' tab next to 'Options' and 'Upload attachment' tab? Is it just me? Maybe I saw wrong...

dvgrn wrote:

Extrementhusiast wrote:Why not rate them all?

Well, only because you've gone and broken The Rules -- rule #3, specifically. It's not too late, though! It's so nice being able to edit one's old posts.

Actually the post you referred to itself breaks rule #3... That makes the Four Commandments self-contradictory and even ironic. Ha, ha, I guess...
It's not too late though!
So is Alexey's poll system really automatic or something?
It feels kinda weird to put NO VOTE for every post here...

15, 13, 12, 4, 8

16, 14, 9

16, 13, 8, 14, 5, 4, 15, 6, 9, 11

A few notes on the credits:

• #1: I think Chris Cain made the most significant recent contribution to the conduit collection by writing a script to compile it.
• #7: "scote" is Scot Ellison.

14, 13, 15, 3, 16.

13, 15, 16

13, 14, 1, 3, 15, 11, 9, 16, 2, 12, 4