Pi-R-Squared spaceship: Difference between revisions
Sorry, but there is perhaps a more appropriate example |
Goldenratio (talk | contribs) Separated new text into "generalizations" section and improved |
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It was claimed to have been "seen briefly in 1974 on a PDP-12 display by Tony Honcho Jarnow" (an anagram of "[[John Horton Conway]]"), arising from the [[ash]] of a random 128×80 [[soup]], "just before an unfortunate power outage due to tripping on a power cable".<ref name="post57860" /> | It was claimed to have been "seen briefly in 1974 on a PDP-12 display by Tony Honcho Jarnow" (an anagram of "[[John Horton Conway]]"), arising from the [[ash]] of a random 128×80 [[soup]], "just before an unfortunate power outage due to tripping on a power cable".<ref name="post57860" /> | ||
The idea is that the R-pentomino and the five-cell pi grandparent are each fairly [[common]] and therefore likely to pop up in general, regardless of what the pattern was like | ==Generalizations== | ||
The idea is that the R-pentomino and the five-cell pi grandparent are each fairly [[common]] and therefore likely to pop up in general, regardless of what the pattern was like tens or hundreds of generations earlier (as long as it had not already adopted a stable/repeating configuration). If one of the many initial patterns that could lead to this also had two R-pentominoes and two pi grandparents (in the same configuration), then it would result in a spaceship. In August {{year|2013}}, [[Martin Grant]] discovered a near-miss spaceship that relies on a similar principle, where an R-pentomino descendant moves at a speed of 14c/65 [[orthogonal]] with a dot [[spark]].<ref name="post8872" /> In December {{year|2020}}, [[Tanner Jacobi]] found a mechanism where two blocks and two traffic light predecessors, aided by a line of gutter symmetry, which happened to form from the same arrangement shifted by one cell 61 generations later minus one dot spark on each side due to their sheer commonness.<ref name="post116246" /> | |||
==References== | ==References== | ||
Revision as of 16:58, 23 December 2020
The Pi-R-Squared spaceship is a fictituous spaceship due to Dave Greene, supposedly consisting of two pi grandparents and two R-pentominos, with a population of 20 in a 55×34 bounding box, moving at speed c/137.
It was claimed to have been "seen briefly in 1974 on a PDP-12 display by Tony Honcho Jarnow" (an anagram of "John Horton Conway"), arising from the ash of a random 128×80 soup, "just before an unfortunate power outage due to tripping on a power cable".[1]
Generalizations
The idea is that the R-pentomino and the five-cell pi grandparent are each fairly common and therefore likely to pop up in general, regardless of what the pattern was like tens or hundreds of generations earlier (as long as it had not already adopted a stable/repeating configuration). If one of the many initial patterns that could lead to this also had two R-pentominoes and two pi grandparents (in the same configuration), then it would result in a spaceship. In August 2013, Martin Grant discovered a near-miss spaceship that relies on a similar principle, where an R-pentomino descendant moves at a speed of 14c/65 orthogonal with a dot spark.[2] In December 2020, Tanner Jacobi found a mechanism where two blocks and two traffic light predecessors, aided by a line of gutter symmetry, which happened to form from the same arrangement shifted by one cell 61 generations later minus one dot spark on each side due to their sheer commonness.[3]
References
- ↑ Dave Greene (March 13, 2018). Re: Thread for basic questions (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums
- ↑ Martin Grant (August 27, 2013). Re: Thread For Your Accidental Discoveries (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums
- ↑ Tanner Jacobi (December 17, 2020). Re: Thread For Your Useless Discoveries (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums