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This week's featured article A spaceship (much less commonly referred to as a glider or a fish) is a finite pattern that returns to its initial state after a number of generations (known as its period) but in a different location. The speed of a spaceship is the number of cells that the pattern moves during its period. This is expressed in terms of c (the metaphorical "speed of light") which is one cell per generation; thus, a spaceship with a period of five that moves two cells to the left during its period travels at the speed of 2c/5. Most known spaceships in Life travel either orthogonally (only horizontal or vertical displacement) or diagonally (equal horizontal and vertical displacement). However, several large Conway's Life spaceships have been engineered that travel in various oblique directions, and it is known that Life has spaceships that travel in all rational directions at arbitrarily slow speeds. Read more... Pattern collection The LifeWiki contains one of the most comprehensive catalogues of patterns available on the internet. Within it you will find: 1670 patterns (including 691 oscillators, 176 spaceships and 381 still lifes); 3758 images (608 animated and 3150 static); Over 3000 downloadable pattern files; Glider syntheses for 958 patterns. Download pattern collection 2 MB .zip archive containing the 1500+ RLE pattern files used on the wiki

Did you know... ... that all strict still lifes up to and including 14 cells have been found by apgsearch in asymmetrical 16 × 16 soups? ... that c/2 orthogonal and c/4 diagonal were the only speeds of spaceships seen to emerge from asymmetric soups on Catagolue until 2020, when a loafer appeared naturally? ... that all currently known standard Herschel conduits produce the same Herschel great-grandfather pattern, except for Fx158? ... that eater 1 is the smallest asymmetric still life? ... that in Life, no spaceship can exist with a speed of (m, n)c/x where (m + n)/x > 0.5? ... that even without using fixed-cost reverse caber tosser technology, an N-bit strict still life – specifically, some length of long long (...) boat or ship – can be constructed for any odd integer N using no more than 20 gliders, and for any even integer N using no more than 21 gliders, using a temporary tubstretcher? ... that even without using fixed-cost reverse caber tosser technology, some specific N-bit period-2 oscillators can be constructed for any even integer N using no more than 27 gliders, and for any odd integer N using no more than 29 gliders, using a temporary tubstretcher? ... that in 2022, a still life was found containing a finite region whose only predecessor is itself? ... that it was proved in the early 1970s that reflectorless rotating oscillators exist in Life, but none were found until 2018 when Adam P. Goucher completed the 0E0P metacell, and none could be run through a full cycle without specialized hardware until smaller ones were constructed in 2021? ... that there are currently known elementary spaceships with speeds c/7 and c/10 orthogonal, but none with c/8 or c/9?           Showing 10 items out of 92 More did you know...