ConwayLife.com

• The almost not knightship.
• The 0E0P unit cell, a unit cell for which the off state is a void. 0E0P is a massive contraction of “Off [0] state encoded with zero cells.”
• A “wall” or “shield,” an extendable eater that can eat spaceships/other patterns regardless of it’s positioning/trajectory. Bonus: A way to connect sections at an angle without the corners being vulnerable.
• A “tank,” a spaceship which has “armor” not necessary to the ship’s movement but can absorb gliders and other potentially threatening patterns without sustaining permanent damage.
• A fully working "twitching ants" telegraph. (With or without max bandwidth.)

• A machine that can receive and "store" gliders in a closed loop and release them when given a signal.
• A period ≠2 phoenix.
• A puffer which synthesizes unusual still lifes.
• A non-oscillating heisenburp.

• Non-trivial oscillators of all periods not yet discovered.
• Elementary spaceships of speeds c/8-9o and c/8-11d.
• Elementary knightship, does not neccesarily have to be a derivative of the almost knightship.
• Elementary 1-D and 2-D replicators.

• Period 7 rake.

• Small (<25x25) stable period-changing 90-degree glider reflector
• Small (<25x25) Spartan stable 90-degree glider reflector
• 90-degree elbow for 2c/3 signal wire
  (this would probably solve the unknown oscillator periods and prove omniperiodicity)
• Double 2c/3 signal to single 2c/3 signal converter
  (would also solve the omniperiodicity problem)
• Stable small direct G-to-2G
  (would make a good fraction of the gun collection obsolete again)
• Stable small direct two-state G-to-G switch
  (alternate output gliders sent in different directions)
• Glider construction recipes for the remaining 16-bit still lifes for which no efficient construction is known
• Glider construction recipe for an edge-repair spaceship
  (just to make the Heisenburp detector in the link actually "useful"...)
• Explicit N-glider construction recipe for a mechanism that can construct any glider-constructible object, no matter how large, using a fixed number of gliders.
• Complete list of all possible distinct three-glider collisions (different sparks or ash)
  (with hashes of each of the ashes, please...)
• A seed string for a C1 Catagolue soup that produces a loafer or any new spaceship type
• A freeze-dried waterbear
• A Garden of Eden with fewer than 45 ON cells, or a proof/search results showing that no such object exists
• An orphan with fewer than 88 defined cells, or a proof/search results showing that no such object exists
• A pattern that has great-great-great-grandparents but no great-great-great-great-grandparents
• 4-cell-high Garden of Eden, or proof that this is impossible
• quadratic-growth pattern with fewer than 23 cells
• Compact hot-swappable glider timing adjustment circuits with a continuous range of timings
• Direct reflector for some *WSS (no intermediate B/glider/Herschel/pi/QB/R stage)
• Direct small B/glider/Herschel/pi/QB/R to switch engine (swimmer) converter
  (swimmers are so slow that this might actually help reduce higher prime-period guns)
• Direct small HWSS to B/glider/Herschel/pi/QB/R converter
• Direct small B/glider/Herschel/pi/QB/R to HWSS converter
• Direct small B/glider/Herschel/pi/QB/R to LWSS converter
• Direct small B/glider/Herschel/pi/QB/R to MWSS converter
  (no separate signal needed to kill the Annoying Beehive(TM) that usually seems to be inevitable
• Direct small B/glider/Herschel/pi/QB/R to switch engine (swimmer) converter

• synthesis of a c/4 orthogonal spaceship
• syntheses of all oscillators up to 16 bits (2 left)
• syntheses of any other new speeds of spaceships
• syntheses of the remaining 20-bit pseudo still-lifes

calcyman wrote:I'm working on the 0E0P unit cell. I've designed all of the circuitry other than the one-time self-destructions.

Mr. Missed Her wrote:

calcyman wrote:I'm working on the 0E0P unit cell. I've designed all of the circuitry other than the one-time self-destructions.

Cool! One advantage 0E0P cells would have is that in addition to the state of the metacells being easily visible, very large patterns and the state of metametacells would also be visible. If you were okay with Golly lagging a lot. Also, a 0E0P metaglider could be said to be an actual spaceship.

Saka wrote:-Another phoenix

Saka wrote:-Stable Heisenburp

muzik wrote:- Period 19 oscillator
- Period 23 oscillator
- Period 38 oscillator
- Period 41 oscillator
- True period 34 oscillator
- Elementary c/8 orthogonal spaceship
- Elementary c/9 orthogonal spaceship
- Elementary c/8 diagonal spaceship
- Elementary c/9 diagonal spaceship
- Elementary c/10 diagonal spaceship
- Elementary c/11 diagonal spaceship
- Elementary knightship, does not neccesarily have to be a derivative of the almost knightship
- Elementary clean 1D replicator
- Elementary clean 2D replicator

muzik wrote:"All periods not yet discovered" - this should be easy since conduits and the like exist.

Mr. Missed Her wrote:

muzik wrote:"All periods not yet discovered" - this should be easy since conduits and the like exist.

Yeah, but the periods are low periods, being 19, 23, 38, 41, and 34. You'd need some pretty low period conduits, probably even for 34.

• Small (<25x25) stable period-changing 90-degree glider reflector
• Small (<25x25) Spartan stable 90-degree glider reflector
• 90-degree elbow for 2c/3 signal wire
  (this would probably solve the unknown oscillator periods and prove omniperiodicity)
• Double 2c/3 signal to single 2c/3 signal converter
  (would also solve the omniperiodicity problem)
• Stable small direct G-to-2G
  (would make a good fraction of the gun collection obsolete again)
• Stable small direct two-state G-to-G switch
  (alternate output gliders sent in different directions)
• Glider construction recipes for the remaining 16-bit still lifes for which no efficient construction is known
• Glider construction recipe for an edge-repair spaceship
  (just to make the Heisenburp detector in the link actually "useful"...)
• Explicit N-glider construction recipe for a mechanism that can construct any glider-constructible object, no matter how large, using a fixed number of gliders.
• Complete list of all possible distinct three-glider collisions (different sparks or ash)
  (with hashes of each of the ashes, please...)
• A seed string for a C1 Catagolue soup that produces a loafer or any new spaceship type
• A freeze-dried waterbear
• A Garden of Eden with fewer than 45 ON cells, or a proof/search results showing that no such object exists
• An orphan with fewer than 88 defined cells, or a proof/search results showing that no such object exists
• A pattern that has great-great-great-grandparents but no great-great-great-great-grandparents
• 4-cell-high Garden of Eden, or proof that this is impossible
• quadratic-growth pattern with fewer than 23 cells
• Compact hot-swappable glider timing adjustment circuits with a continuous range of timings
• Direct reflector for some *WSS (no intermediate B/glider/Herschel/pi/QB/R stage)
• Direct small B/glider/Herschel/pi/QB/R to switch engine (swimmer) converter
  (swimmers are so slow that this might actually help reduce higher prime-period guns)
• Direct small HWSS to B/glider/Herschel/pi/QB/R converter
• Direct small B/glider/Herschel/pi/QB/R to HWSS converter
• Direct small B/glider/Herschel/pi/QB/R to LWSS converter
• Direct small B/glider/Herschel/pi/QB/R to MWSS converter
  (no separate signal needed to kill the Annoying Beehive(TM) that usually seems to be inevitable
• Direct small B/glider/Herschel/pi/QB/R to switch engine (swimmer) converter

Saka wrote:-A machine that can recieve and "store" gliders in a closed loop and release them when given a signal
-Another phoenix
-A puffer which synthesizes unusual still lifes
-Stable Heisenburp

gmc_nxtman wrote:Stable heisenburps already exist. See golly's heisenburp.py, and I also believe that Calcyman constructed one based off a result by Guam in 2013, but I can't seem to find the post.

dvgrn wrote:

• Glider construction recipes for the remaining 16-bit still lifes for which no construction is known
  (i.e., the 999s not mentioned below that point in the thread)
• Glider construction recipes for the remaining 16-bit still lifes for which no construction is known
  (i.e., the non-999s not mentioned below that point in the thread)

wildmyron wrote:Is the second point here meant to be "Glider construction recipes with < 16 gliders"?

As for the first point, it's already done...

Sokwe wrote:I suggest changing the title of this topic to "Open problems". This would only slightly expand the scope of the discussion. Honestly, I thought we already had an open problems topic, but I can't seem to find it...

from the old 2008 open-problems list, dvgrn wrote:- Find a stable pattern that cannot be constructed from gliders, or prove that, for any stable pattern, there exists a sequence of gliders that interact with it leaving zero live cells.

- Closer to reachable: find p7 and p9 fountains or a p6 superfountain. There are many similar problems of "find an oscillator with this period and a spark that looks like this" that remain unknown.

- A 3c/6 (c/2) spaceship that's entirely period 6.

- A constructed c/3 rake of around period 144 or less.

- More c/4 orthogonal puffers based on Paul Tooke's p168 puffer.

- Ways convert diagonal signals (lightspeed or otherwise) to/from orthogonal signals.

- A period 8 c/4 diagonal glider stream "fuse" that accepts gliders from a p8 backward rake, and emits an equivalent stream. [I've edited this a bit, maybe wrongly, but I think it makes sense...]

- How much can the population grow in n generations? I.e. if generation 0 has population P and generation n has population Q, how large can Q/P be? For n=1, Q/P can be arbitrarily close to, but not equal to, 3. Unknown for any larger n.

- Consider a particular cell within a pattern, and look at the sequence of its states in gen 0, gen 1, ... Can every finite sequence of bits occur as such a sequence? (If every finite sequence can occur, then so can every infinite
sequence.)

- Is there a still-life which is annihilated by any single glider which hits it? How about just every glider from one particular direction? (Such a thing would be useful for protecting a pattern from random glider attacks.)

- Very ambitious: find a termination for a 2c/3 signal wire that emits a glider directly.

- There's also a whole bunch of minimization problems: the "smallest" patterns with particular properties. "Smallest" can be taken to mean initial number of on cells, area of bounding rectangle, diameter..., restrictions can be imposed (symmetries, confinement to a single row/column, consisting only of gliders), and pattern properties include being a spaceship with a specific velocity, growing for ever, growing for ever in various ways (quadratically, sublinearly, with t log(t)...), being a GoE, being grandfatherless... A few of these are solved, but most are not.

dvgrn wrote:

gmc_nxtman wrote:Stable heisenburps already exist. See golly's heisenburp.py, and I also believe that Calcyman constructed one based off a result by Guam in 2013, but I can't seem to find the post.

Maybe because it was earlier -- 2011?

dvgrn wrote:

• Small (<25x25) stable period-changing 90-degree glider reflector
• Small (<25x25) Spartan stable 90-degree glider reflector
• 90-degree elbow for 2c/3 signal wire
  (this would probably solve the unknown oscillator periods and prove omniperiodicity)
• Double 2c/3 signal to single 2c/3 signal converter
  (would also solve the omniperiodicity problem)
• Stable small direct G-to-2G
  (would make a good fraction of the gun collection obsolete again)...

Saka wrote:Glider spacer machine
For example, feed this to the machine:

Code: Select all

x = 12, y = 12, rule = B3/S23
10bo$10b2o$9bobo4$4b3o$6bo$5bo$2o$b2o$o!

To turn it into this:

Code: Select all

x = 11, y = 11, rule = B3/S23
8b3o$10bo$9bo2$4b3o$6bo$5bo2$3o$2bo$bo!

gameoflifeboy wrote:

Saka wrote:Glider spacer machine...

There is something called a regulator, which takes gliders in arbitrary positions (along the same lane, unlike your example)...