ConwayLife.com

Posted: **May 9th, 2021, 12:09 am**

It's kind of odd that we don't have a small highway robber yet--a p1 pattern that acts as a glider eater on one lane, but lets gliders pass completely on an adjacent lane and all further-away lanes.

To date, the smallest highway robbers are large devices that use specialized baits to catch gliders, plus the signal circuitry necessary to rebuild them. The fastest recovery time is currently 742, but I'm confident that a "fast" highway robber exists with a repeat time of less than 100.

This is going to be harder than just running Bellman on an input of a single glider--even with max-active values of 12, no results come up for a highway robber. It's likely that we have to search for either A) direct restorations of bait, or B) do a very deep and lengthy Bellman search.

Pitches of further ideas and contributions are welcome. The lack of a direct highway robber is an empty spot in the CGoL community's toolbox.

Posted: **May 9th, 2021, 12:43 am**

Scorbie got very close in the past:

Code: Select all

x = 7, y = 13, rule = B3/S23
2bo$3b2o$2b2o4$2o$obo$2bo2bo$b2obobo$3bob2o$3bo$2b2o!

Posted: **May 9th, 2021, 10:33 am**

Kazyan wrote: May 9th, 2021, 12:09 am It's kind of odd that we don't have a small highway robber yet--a p1 pattern that acts as a glider eater on one lane, but lets gliders pass completely on an adjacent lane and all further-away lanes.

That description doesn't quite line up with my idea of "highway robber". A highway robber has to be able to steal something (a signal) from the highway, not just absorb it.

Sidesnagger could maybe come into use as a general term if you're really just looking for a super-edgy glider eater, but then again that's probably just confusing -- would have to say something like "max-clearance sidesnagger" to distinguish it from the other one, so then we might as well just say "max-clearance eater".

Posted: **May 9th, 2021, 12:25 pm**

"Highway murderer"?

Posted: **May 10th, 2021, 3:04 pm**

"Highway eater"?

Posted: **May 10th, 2021, 6:00 pm**

Sidesnagger, highway murder, highway eater...whatever you'd like to call it, we don't have one.

Posted: **May 10th, 2021, 6:22 pm**

Has anyone tried dr yet?

Posted: **May 12th, 2021, 6:17 pm**

wwei47 wrote: May 10th, 2021, 6:22 pm Has anyone tried dr yet?

Part of a larger c14/h7/w7 search yielded the following (which, sadly, requires the block to be present):

Code: Select all

x = 15, y = 11, rule = B3/S23
10bo2b2o$bo6bobo2b2o$b3o5b2o$4bo$3bo4bo$3b2o2bobo$b2o3bob2o$o2b4o$bobo
3b3o$2bo3bo2bo$6b2o!

I'll see what c16/h8/w8 turns up.

Posted: **May 12th, 2021, 6:21 pm**

Extrementhusiast wrote: May 12th, 2021, 6:17 pm I'll see what c16/h8/w8 turns up.

Is there a way for us to split the search? I want to participate but I don't want to duplicate your work.

Posted: **May 12th, 2021, 6:38 pm**

wwei47 wrote: May 12th, 2021, 6:21 pm
Extrementhusiast wrote: May 12th, 2021, 6:17 pm I'll see what c16/h8/w8 turns up.
Is there a way for us to split the search? I want to participate but I don't want to duplicate your work.

I ran dr2 from the following input file:

Code: Select all

c16
h8
w8
r30 30
...............
,..............
,,.............
,,,....1.1.....
,,,,....11.....
,,,,,...1......
,,,,,,.........
,,,,,,,o.......
,,,,,,,,,......
,,,,,,,,,,.....
,,,,,,,,,,,....
,,,,,,,,,,,,...
,,,,,,,,,,,,,..
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,.!
d1 r30 36 36 44
P0

The P0 at the end tells dr2 that it should fill any new cells with live cells 0% of the time, a.k.a. never. Replacing it with P100 will work backwards from the end of the P0 search.

Posted: **May 12th, 2021, 6:40 pm**

Extrementhusiast wrote: May 12th, 2021, 6:38 pm The P0 at the end tells dr2 that it should fill any new cells with live cells 0% of the time, a.k.a. never. Replacing it with P100 will work backwards from the end of the P0 search.

But how will we know when we meet in the middle?

Posted: **May 12th, 2021, 7:00 pm**

wwei47 wrote: May 12th, 2021, 6:40 pm
Extrementhusiast wrote: May 12th, 2021, 6:38 pm The P0 at the end tells dr2 that it should fill any new cells with live cells 0% of the time, a.k.a. never. Replacing it with P100 will work backwards from the end of the P0 search.
But how will we know when we meet in the middle?

I don't know, but when the cell immediately left of the only fixed ON cell (the first to be examined) stops also being ON in the results, one of the initial two branches has been completed. This doesn't necessarily mean that the search is halfway done, though, as one of the branches may be much longer than the other.

Posted: **May 12th, 2021, 7:03 pm**

Extrementhusiast wrote: May 12th, 2021, 7:00 pm I don't know, but when the cell immediately left of the only fixed ON cell (the first to be examined) stops also being ON in the results, one of the initial two branches has been completed. This doesn't necessarily mean that the search is halfway done, though, as one of the branches may be much longer than the other.

Acknowledged. If someone else wants to join the search, how might they do so?

Posted: **May 12th, 2021, 7:07 pm**

wwei47 wrote: May 12th, 2021, 7:03 pm
Extrementhusiast wrote: May 12th, 2021, 7:00 pm I don't know, but when the cell immediately left of the only fixed ON cell (the first to be examined) stops also being ON in the results, one of the initial two branches has been completed. This doesn't necessarily mean that the search is halfway done, though, as one of the branches may be much longer than the other.
Acknowledged. If someone else wants to join the search, how might they do so?

You could probably set that first cell to ON and then run that file with P0, or set that first cell to OFF and run that file with P100. That would split the search into four sets (ON-P0, ON-P100, OFF-P0, ON-P100).

Posted: **May 12th, 2021, 7:09 pm**

Kazyan wrote: May 12th, 2021, 7:07 pm You could probably set that first cell to ON and then run that file with P0, or set that first cell to OFF and run that file with P100. That would split the search into four sets (ON-P0, ON-P100, OFF-P0, ON-P100).

Makes sense. But I feel like that there should be a cleaner way to split things up.
EDIT: The thing that makes it tricky is that Extrementhusiast has likely already started with their P0 search, and I tend to leave dr searches unattended for a long time, and we might run past each other and not notice. Or else it would be as trivial as taking a few cells, setting them differently in each search file, then distributing out the search files to anyone who was interested.

Posted: **May 13th, 2021, 1:10 am**

The second cell has turned on for me after just under 45B iterations:

Code: Select all

computecellorbackup calls: 44970 000000
Gen 0.  Rows 31 - 44.  Cols 30 - 43.
,.............
,,............
,,o....1.1....
,,......11....
,,ooo...1.....
,,...o........
,,o.o..o......
,,...oo.o.....
,,.oo..o.o....
,,o..o.o.o....
,,,,,.oo.oo...
,,,,,...o..o..
,
,
Full change counts: 5 5 6 8 8  9 13 20 16
Change counts: 0 0 0 1 3  3 8 16 13
Sizes: 0x0 0x0 0x0 1x1 2x3  5x6 7x7 8x7 8x8
*****  Period 5 at gen 16
p5 r7 3x3 .10 1@0 B.B	   new 5.0.0
u21 r43 9x12 ...........1 000......001 @@00....@@0B 0@@....@0@@. @000@.@..0.3 ..00@@.....2 ....0....00. .........0@A .........B.2	<- unknown
Full change counts: 5 6 7 10 8  6 6 5 6 9  9 10 14 15 11  10 12 14 12 11  11 12
Change counts: 0 0 0 3 2  3 4 5 6 9  9 10 14 15 11  10 12 14 12 11  11 12
Sizes: 0x0 0x0 0x0 1x3 1x2  2x2 3x2 4x3 5x3 6x4  6x4 7x4 8x5 8x6 8x6  8x5 8x6 8x7 8x7 8x7  8x5 8x6
Gen 0.  Rows 31 - 48.  Cols 28 - 44.
,,,..............
,,,,.............
,,,,,....1.1.....
,,,,,,....11.....
,,,,,.....1......
,,,,,............
,,,,,...oo.......
,,,,,...o........
,,,,,,...o.......
,,,.o.....o......
,,o.o......o.....
,,..oo....oo.....
,,.o..o...o......
,,.oo.o....o....
,,,...o.oooo..o.
,,,oo..o....ooo.
,,,,,,,,,,,,...
,

I'd estimate that this happened a couple of hours ago. No results yet.

EDIT: Well, that didn't take long. Didn't find anything new except for this P7:

Code: Select all

x = 14, y = 15, rule = B3/S23
3b2o3b2o$2bo2bo2b2o$2bobo$2obob7o$o2bo8bo$2bob4o3b2o$b2o$3b2o2b6o$3bo
9bo$4b5obobo$9b2ob2o$6b2o$6bo$7bo$6b2o!

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How about a direct highway robber?

How about a direct highway robber?

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