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Hello, i'm Eduardo Monteiro da Costa and i believe that i discovered a new puffer that leaves a trail of three blocks, one blinker and a pond.

Please leave an rle.

It is an ark - a pair of mutually stabilized switch engines. Nothing really amusing, unless you discovered it from random starting conditions, which would be quite remarkable (please share the soup, if it's the case and you still have it).

codeholic wrote:It is an ark - a pair of mutually stabilized switch engines. Nothing really amusing, unless you discovered it from random starting conditions, which would be quite remarkable (please share the soup, if it's the case and you still have it).

Code: Select all

x = 33, y = 32, rule = B3/S23
27b2o$27b3o$26bo2bo$27bo3bo$28bob3o$30b2o$29b3o$29b2o$29bo$30b2o5$28bo
$28b2o$28bo2bo2$17bo11bobo$16bobo11bo$16bobo$17bo3$2o$2o7b2o12bo$8b2o
13bo$8b3o11bo$16bo6b2obo$10bob2obobo5b2ob2o$10bo2bo2bo7bobo$10bobo!

Code: Select all

x = 10, y = 18, rule = B3/S23
7bo$6bo$6b2o$8bo$7b3o$7b3o8$3o2$o3bo$b4o$4bo!

Yes i found it randomly, you may have notice that i'm a beginner in this. I found it when i "destroyed" a 7 in a row Codership V gun. Here is the original rle when i found it:
note: the code was too long to post

Welcome to ConwayLife.com!
The V-gun fires Corderships and each Cordership consists of several switch engines.
I assume that when you destroyed that V-gun, two switch engines survived and escaped as a puffer.
Do not get discouraged by this, every newbie comes up with piles of "discoveries" that are not new or notable.
I remember playing around with GoL, finding this pattern; and considering it a notable Methuselah, I even wanted to make a wiki page about it!

Kiran wrote:Welcome to ConwayLife.com!
The V-gun fires Corderships and each Cordership consists of several switch engines.
I assume that when you destroyed that V-gun, two switch engines survived and escaped as a puffer.
Do not get discouraged by this, every newbie comes up with piles of "discoveries" that are not new or notable.
I remember playing around with GoL, finding this pattern;

Code: Select all

x = 5, y = 4, rule = B3/S23
bob2o$obo$obo$bobo!

and considering it a notable Methuselah, I even wanted to make a wiki page about it!

Why is it not as interesting as Noah's Ark?

Kiran wrote:Welcome to ConwayLife.com!
The V-gun fires Corderships and each Cordership consists of several switch engines.
I assume that when you destroyed that V-gun, two switch engines survived and escaped as a puffer.
Do not get discouraged by this, every newbie comes up with piles of "discoveries" that are not new or notable.
I remember playing around with GoL, finding this pattern;

Code: Select all

x = 5, y = 4, rule = B3/S23
bob2o$obo$obo$bobo!

and considering it a notable Methuselah, I even wanted to make a wiki page about it!

I accidentally did... this:

Z

(I think somebody should delete this)

Eduardo M. da Costa wrote:Why is it not as interesting as Noah's Ark?

Only because Noah's Ark was discovered very early on. It got a name when it didn't have a lot of siblings to compete with it.

There are hints here and there, that pentadecathlon's list of five known arks is considerably out of date -- at least unless you add the restriction that the two switch engines have to be in the same phase (mod 48).

So there are rumored to be thousands of pairs of mutually stabilizing switch engines... and I'm not surprised, because I've seen a lot of Cordership crashes over the years, and pairs of switch engines do very often continue merrily onward.

But I can't seem to find the published list that Alexey mentioned in the second link above. Can someone provide a reference? EDIT: Was it partly a hunt for trivial 2-engine Corderships, or what? (You can never rule out non-trivial ones, where the fuse left by an ark -- or even a single block-laying switch engine -- burns cleanly at c/12. It could happen... just like codeholic's c/2 pufferfish exhaust fuse, only a whole lot less likely.)

Seems as if switch engines are probably more "mutually interfering" than "mutually supporting" in a lot of cases, especially if one or both of them have clearly stabilized into a block-laying or glider-producing orbit.

In this case, the bare switch engines do settle into the orbit described instead of imploding, as either would do alone. So that does look like a good mutually supporting pair.