This week's featured article
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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.
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Pattern collection
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The LifeWiki contains one of the most comprehensive catalogues of patterns available on the internet. Within it you will find:
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Did you know...
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- ... that glider constructions for the B29, X66, half-X66 with HWSS, Pushalong 1, 25P3H1V0.1, 30P5H2V0, 30P4H2V0, a pufferfish spaceship, and the weekender were discovered in 2015 — more than twice as many new spaceship recipes as had been completed in the entire previous decade?
- ... that in 2014 and 2015 alone, more new spaceship syntheses have been completed than were found in all the years between 1970 and 2013?
- ... that as of September 2023 there are 253 different still lifes known to be constructible by colliding four or fewer gliders, but this list is almost certainly not complete?
- ... that in 2014 a new natural infinite growth pattern was discovered, starting from a symmetric random starting configuration?
- ... that the first self-constructing Conway's Life pattern was built in 2010?
- ... that the first glider synthesis for a c/3 spaceship was completed in 2014?
- ... that the first "macro-spaceship" gun (a Gemini spaceship gun) was constructed in 2010, followed by the HBK gun in January 2015 and a Demonoid gun in December 2015?
- ... that the waterbear was the first known high-speed oblique spaceship, many orders of magnitude faster than Gemini spaceships and half-baked knightships?
- ... that there are no known direct reflectors for lightspeed wire signals, or for signals in 2c/3 wires, but that very large reflectors for these signals can be constructed using stable or periodic circuitry?
- ... that 24 ten-cell patterns exhibit infinite growth, with 17 unique pattern types, but that it has been proven that no nine-cell pattern exhibits infinite growth?
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