Conway life spaceships as real spaceships

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Saka
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Conway life spaceships as real spaceships

Post by Saka » June 19th, 2015, 9:02 pm

This thread is for this specific question:
What if the spaceships in conways game of life were real, what would they look like?
What would Gemini look like if it were real?

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Re: Conway life spaceships as real spaceships

Post by dvgrn » June 20th, 2015, 8:04 am

Saka wrote:What would Gemini look like if it were real?
Gemini would be an extraordinarily unsatisfactory spaceship to travel in. You'd be sitting in a box made out of nanobots all holding each other together in the form of a spaceship... and the box wouldn't move! It would just sit there for several years, sending out more nanobots to build a new box some distance away. You'd get really bored for a while.

Then the new box would start sending signals to your box, telling all the nanobots to let go of each other and disintegrate... so there you would be, floating in empty space. That would be less boring, at least, but a lot more annoying. You'd have to make your way over to the next box under your own power, and sit in that one until the same thing happened again a few years later.

-- This all kind of assumes that nearby space is full of too-small-to-see nanobots zipping around looking for something to do; otherwise some serious questions start to come up about conservation of matter and energy...!

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Re: Conway life spaceships as real spaceships

Post by simsim314 » June 20th, 2015, 8:33 am

dvgrn wrote: You'd have to make your way over to the next box under your own power
Unless the nanobots will disintegrate you (hopefully painlessly) and compose you inside the new box. Something like very slow teleporter.

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Re: Conway life spaceships as real spaceships

Post by Saka » June 20th, 2015, 9:13 pm

dvgrn wrote:
Saka wrote:What would Gemini look like if it were real?
Gemini would be an extraordinarily unsatisfactory spaceship to travel in. You'd be sitting in a box made out of nanobots all holding each other together in the form of a spaceship... and the box wouldn't move! It would just sit there for several years, sending out more nanobots to build a new box some distance away. You'd get really bored for a while.

Then the new box would start sending signals to your box, telling all the nanobots to let go of each other and disintegrate... so there you would be, floating in empty space. That would be less boring, at least, but a lot more annoying. You'd have to make your way over to the next box under your own power, and sit in that one until the same thing happened again a few years later.

-- This all kind of assumes that nearby space is full of too-small-to-see nanobots zipping around looking for something to do; otherwise some serious questions start to come up about conservation of matter and energy...!
Ok I have 3 things to say:
1.what about other spaceships? (eg. LWSS, Waterbear, Parralell HBK, etc.)
2.I'll try to make in image for Gemini (like what you said)
3.I was thinking of gemini as a two-room spaceship with a powerful thruster that gets power by accumulating energy in a beam that connects the two rooms, and once it has enough energy it sends a short but powerful energy pulse to the thrusters that would boost you and the spaceship

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Re: Conway life spaceships as real spaceships

Post by biggiemac » June 22nd, 2015, 4:33 pm

This sounds like a fun chat to join, so I'll do a few. *WSS, Caterpillar and Waterbear :D

The LWSS, MWSS and HWSS are space torpedoes. What we see in the CGOL plane is "Front view, Right view, Back view, Left view," repeated (assuming the nose is Top View). It spins about its axis! It would be a very dizzy ride. :lol: But, it would also be one of the quickest ways to get yourself from point A to point B. (You could keep up with the torpedoes without losing your lunch by traveling in a 64P2H1V0, which is sleeker and more stable, and also not typically used for crashing into things).

The other two are caterpillar designs. These have a much different character.
Caterpillar designs are like carefully orchestrated stampedes, where the energy is harnessed to provide a livable ecosystem around them. So picture a stampede, sheltered from the vacuum of space by an enormous stadium in an airtight force field.

In the Caterpillar, your stadium is narrow and extremely long. The ground, when visible through the stampede, is a field of grass and rubble, although it must be pretty thick to provide the gravity to keep everyone down. You sit on a Pi. As it stampedes, in sync with all the other Pies around it, the collective hoof pounding kicks bits of rubble out to the edges of the stadium.

In an astounding entropy-reversing collision, the rubble flies together at regular points to form space torpedoes, which fly past you in a dense formation to the front of the stadium. They carry with them seeds for new grass needed to support the stampede. When they reach the front, they explode, and the energy lays down their grass and debris. Every time this happens, it adds to the front of the stadium to be just out of reach of the Pi at the front, allowing the stampede to go on forever. It is so delicately balanced that if you were to remove even a single torpedo from the formation, the leading Pi would eventually burst through the wall of the stadium, shattering the force field, and everyone would be lost to the vacuum of space. (Try it)

The back of the stadium disintegrates as the Pies at the back of the stampede kick out the last bits of rubble. You could lay this highway down forever if they weren't there, but you were told to leave no trace so they stay. (Try removing the back Pies from each track of the Caterpillar, you're left with a puffer)

For the Waterbear, you would sit on one of the stampeding Herschel climbers. Something is weird about the gravity though; even though the stadium looks flat, it feels like a constant uphill battle. The ground itself isn't even constant, but is instead being pulled by this strange gravity. As the Herschels gallop forward, they again kick bits of rubble back. This time though, the rubble has to fly extremely far, breaking out of the force field. Once it's traveled far enough to compensate for this strange gravity, it is shot down by another torpedo, which eventually carries it to the front.

Three Herschel stampedes, all working together in their own stadiums, help sustain just the front of this spaceship. The other two stampedes are fortunate enough that the rubble from the first drifts into their force field, providing ground to run on. There is no solid ground here, and it seems impossible that such an ecosystem could be self-sufficient, but it has been running for months now, and winning the uphill battle the whole time.
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Re: Conway life spaceships as real spaceships

Post by Extrementhusiast » June 22nd, 2015, 9:44 pm

Cordership: Several (things), which would otherwise break apart or leave debris on their own, somehow interact with each other at their back ends to leave nothing behind.

I don't really know; I'm not that good at this.
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Re: Conway life spaceships as real spaceships

Post by David » June 23rd, 2015, 2:36 am

... I'd only ride on a glider.
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Re: Conway life spaceships as real spaceships

Post by Saka » June 23rd, 2015, 4:00 am

David wrote:... I'd only ride on a glider.
:lol:

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Re: Conway life spaceships as real spaceships

Post by simsim314 » June 23rd, 2015, 9:26 am

biggiemac wrote: What we see in the CGOL plane is "Front view, Right view, Back view, Left view," repeated (assuming the nose is Top View)
Cool idea, anyone want to bother and design the 3d model and animation for it?

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Re: Conway life spaceships as real spaceships

Post by dvgrn » June 23rd, 2015, 11:47 am

simsim314 wrote:
biggiemac wrote: What we see in the CGOL plane is "Front view, Right view, Back view, Left view," repeated (assuming the nose is Top View)
Cool idea, anyone want to bother and design the 3d model and animation for it?
There seems to be a way to arrange eight blocks in a 3x3x3 cube, to do something similar with a glider. The rotation would be on some kind of eccentric cam, though... Also, unfortunately one of the cubes could only be connected to the others along an edge -- but I suppose the same thing would be true of the *WSS-torpedo.

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Re: Conway life spaceships as real spaceships

Post by gmc_nxtman » June 23rd, 2015, 12:04 pm

Saka wrote:1.what about other spaceships? (eg. LWSS, Waterbear, Parralell HBK, etc.)
biggiemac wrote:This sounds like a fun chat to join, so I'll do a few. *WSS, Caterpillar and Waterbear :D
I'll do HBK.

HBK would be a very boring ride.... however upon close inspection everything is more interesting than you thought. Tiny 5-celled organisms would be traveling upon lanes of information, and carefully exchanging nutrients between the information cells, and their own nuclei.

As the tiny organisms move past you (assuming you are sitting on one of the information cells) the information cells are knocked back a bit by the organisms' movement, which is the power of the spaceship.

Every so often one might see the occasional salvo builder come by, which is an important collection of the 5-cell organisms important of keeping the backend of the ship sturdy. The ecosystem is once again, very finely balanced, as if one single information cell is offset from its position at the wrong time, the salvo builder gets the wrong information, the information cell dies, and the ship's organisms come flooding out the side.

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Re: Conway life spaceships as real spaceships

Post by Saka » June 24th, 2015, 1:11 am

gmc_nxtman wrote:
Saka wrote:1.what about other spaceships? (eg. LWSS, Waterbear, Parralell HBK, etc.)
biggiemac wrote:This sounds like a fun chat to join, so I'll do a few. *WSS, Caterpillar and Waterbear :D
I'll do HBK.

HBK would be a very boring ride.... however upon close inspection everything is more interesting than you thought. Tiny 5-celled organisms would be traveling upon lanes of information, and carefully exchanging nutrients between the information cells, and their own nuclei.

As the tiny organisms move past you (assuming you are sitting on one of the information cells) the information cells are knocked back a bit by the organisms' movement, which is the power of the spaceship.

Every so often one might see the occasional salvo builder come by, which is an important collection of the 5-cell organisms important of keeping the backend of the ship sturdy. The ecosystem is once again, very finely balanced, as if one single information cell is offset from its position at the wrong time, the salvo builder gets the wrong information, the information cell dies, and the ship's organisms come flooding out the side.
Gross

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Re: Conway life spaceships as real spaceships

Post by Kiran » July 14th, 2015, 7:46 pm

LWSS:

Code: Select all

x = 4, y = 36, rule = LifeHistory
4B$4B$ACAB$4B5$4B$A2BA$ADBA$A2BA5$A3B$A3B$BD2B$A3B5$A3B$A3B$AD2B$4B5$
4B$BABA$BCBA$4B!
The marked line is the axis of rotation, version with most cubes.
Are there any errors?
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Re: Conway life spaceships as real spaceships

Post by Extrementhusiast » July 14th, 2015, 11:57 pm

Kiran wrote:LWSS:

Code: Select all

x = 4, y = 36, rule = LifeHistory
4B$4B$ACAB$4B5$4B$A2BA$ADBA$A2BA5$A3B$A3B$BD2B$A3B5$A3B$A3B$AD2B$4B5$
4B$BABA$BCBA$4B!
The marked line is the axis of rotation, version with most cubes.
Are there any errors?
I'm not sure if I understand your solution, so I made one independently, by layers:

Code: Select all

x = 7, y = 29, rule = LifeHistory
.3B$A2.A$3.A$3.B$B.B4$2.3A$.A2.A$4.B$4.A$.A.A4$3.3B$2.A2.A$5.A$5.A$2.
A.A4$4.3B$3.B2.B$6.A$6.A$3.B.B!
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Re: Conway life spaceships as real spaceships

Post by danieldb » October 5th, 2015, 10:42 pm

gmc_nxtman wrote:
Saka wrote:1.what about other spaceships? (eg. LWSS, Waterbear, Parralell HBK, etc.)
biggiemac wrote:This sounds like a fun chat to join, so I'll do a few. *WSS, Caterpillar and Waterbear :D
I'll do HBK.

HBK would be a very boring ride.... however upon close inspection everything is more interesting than you thought. Tiny 5-celled organisms would be traveling upon lanes of information, and carefully exchanging nutrients between the information cells, and their own nuclei.

As the tiny organisms move past you (assuming you are sitting on one of the information cells) the information cells are knocked back a bit by the organisms' movement, which is the power of the spaceship.

Every so often one might see the occasional salvo builder come by, which is an important collection of the 5-cell organisms important of keeping the backend of the ship sturdy. The ecosystem is once again, very finely balanced, as if one single information cell is offset from its position at the wrong time, the salvo builder gets the wrong information, the information cell dies, and the ship's organisms come flooding out the side.
The ship would be entirely composed of bread :D

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Re: Conway life spaceships as real spaceships

Post by Xenonquark » October 6th, 2015, 5:37 pm

The glider would be a cheap and nimble ship. Problem is finding a way for it to move in all directions.
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Re: Conway life spaceships as real spaceships

Post by Dets65 » October 12th, 2015, 4:10 pm

I would imagine that the Glider would be a cheap, cobbled together hang-glider, but that's not exciting. A greyship would be exciting, though. When you began you would be boarding a medium-sized ship, but as you went on you'd notice the windows at the edge going further and further and further out. You wouldn't know if there was a fire or explosion, because the blast would take a long time to reach you! (Try taking a greyship and putting a bit of soup in the middle and you know what I mean.)

Once you get to your destination (Assuming you have one, it might be fun to take a vacation to the world-famous Turing Machine or the great and revered Spartan Universal Constructor. The Gemini would be a place of great sights, but it would be immensely boring) the ship would be many, many times bigger than it was at the start!

Code: Select all

x = 4, y = 3, rule = B2i3-ckn4ajkryz5cer6-ak7e8/S02-cn3iknr4eijkny5nq6ek7e
b3o$3o$bo!

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Re: Conway life spaceships as real spaceships

Post by Saka » October 13th, 2015, 3:16 am

The loafer is a piece of bread pushed by a snail, but the bread is a special self-regenerative bread and the snail gets hungry fast, so it has to nibble on the bread every once in a while, pushing it accros the grid. As for the HBK... breadship!

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Re: Conway life spaceships as real spaceships

Post by Extrementhusiast » October 13th, 2015, 10:17 am

Xenonquark wrote:The glider would be a cheap and nimble ship. Problem is finding a way for it to move in all directions.
So, a zipline?
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Re: Conway life spaceships as real spaceships

Post by Xenonquark » October 15th, 2015, 7:34 pm

Extrementhusiast wrote:
Xenonquark wrote:The glider would be a cheap and nimble ship. Problem is finding a way for it to move in all directions.
So, a zipline?
Reflectors, I guess.
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Re: Conway life spaceships as real spaceships

Post by tmokbel1965 » October 20th, 2015, 5:05 pm

This is a very cool discussion. Anyone good enough with photoshop to throw a few samples together? :p

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Re: Conway life spaceships as real spaceships

Post by Redstoneboi » May 20th, 2018, 12:00 am

Note: 1 generation is 1 planck time, and is equal to 10^-43 seconds.
1 cell is 1 planck length, about 1.6×10−35 meters.
riding on gemini would just be trying to catch an atom that keeps on teleporting itself, moving at the speed of damn sound.
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Re: Conway life spaceships as real spaceships

Post by Redstoneboi » May 20th, 2018, 12:07 am

What if we talked about stuff other than spaceships?
what about OTCA metapixels?
or kok's galaxy?
or glider guns?
or the UTM?
or even the work in progress tetris game in life when it's complete?
OR THE R-PENTOMINO?

heck, we could even talk about other rules like larger than life, generations, john von neumann, and more.

anyway, the dart's a dart.
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Re: Conway life spaceships as real spaceships

Post by Redstoneboi » May 20th, 2018, 12:24 am

OTCA metapixel: if you look closely at your computer screen, you can see these.
kok's galaxy: one, giant, spinning, galaxy.
guns: lasers? or airplane hangars? or factories?
depends,
gosper glider gun: laser
buckaroo/snark: mirror
V-gun: ?
highway robber: that one time you didn't look where you were going and accidentally bump a piece of bread
eater1: sharp fish hook, tears gliders and eats bread-pushing snails
Sir Robin: sea horse or a guy from a movie
snail: loafer is evolving!
R-pentomino (and the stuff it evolves into): bomb
fuses and wicks: burning rope, occasionally leaves ash
UTM: a huge building made specifically for computation
universal constructor: fabricator
waterbear and caterpillar: themselves
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「Fluffy」is my sutando.
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Re: Conway life spaceships as real spaceships

Post by Redstoneboi » May 20th, 2018, 1:17 am

Spaghetti monster: oh no
puffers: dump trucks with an open back end
spacefillers: the big bang
agars: water/atmosphere
agar swimmers: actual fish
anyone wanna do small still lives and the high bandwidth telegraph?
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