Polyglot

From LifeWiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search

A polyglot is a pattern that runs in a range of different rules, exhibiting the same behavior in all. The term is understood to be relative to a certain class of cellular automata, e.g. outer-totalistic Life-like cellular automata or isotropic non-totalistic cellular automata.

Most simple patterns such as the glider or beehive are polyglots that run in a wide variety of rules. An early-identified more complex example is the c/2 spaceship x66, which was designed to run, besides Life, also in a variety of rules close to Life, including DryLife, EightLife and PedestrianLife.

See also