Chaotic growth in HighLife

[Tropylium]

An interesting 9-cell pattern (prereplicator + preblock):

Code: Select all

x = 56, y = 56, rule = B36/S23
b3o$o$o$o51$54b2o$54bo!

Since this is diagonally symmetric, the "bomber" lock is not an option. No similar symmetric reaction (or an eater reaction, or a wickstretching reaction) seems to appear either.

Secondary replicators are launched at generation 414110; they gain trailing blinkers in under 900 gens, but it is possible that a glider eventually deletes it.

Chaoticity of growth seems ensured when at gen 508407, a second axial replicator emerges, phased so that its collision with the original one will only lead to more chaos. Still, they seem to largely part ways, with the junk growing up the replicator streams.

[Alexey_Nigin]

Very interesting!

My computer was running this pattern for the whole night and reached generation 2577210:


The corresponding pattern file is here.

[Alexey_Nigin]

Last night my computer was running a large (1000000-by-2) soup.

After 785005 generations it remained unpredictable.