Interesting behaviour

[lifelong]

I would be interested to know if anyone has seen this sort of behaviour before. I came across it recently while playing with different Born and Survive rules. The mobile links are constantly changing and moving but also incredibly long lasting - millions of generations and counting. They thrash about and move unpredictably along the boundaries between fixed regions, sometimes joining with others to make new, longer links. Sometimes they combine to 'eat' fixed regions. I am exploring other aspects.

Mobile links.rle

(867.58 KiB) Downloaded 89 times

[Schiaparelliorbust]

I would be interested to know if anyone has seen this sort of behaviour before. I came across it recently while playing with different Born and Survive rules. The mobile links are constantly changing and moving but also incredibly long lasting - millions of generations and counting. They thrash about and move unpredictably along the boundaries between fixed regions, sometimes joining with others to make new, longer links. Sometimes they combine to 'eat' fixed regions. I am exploring other aspects.
Mobile links.rle

Those are called rivers. They are a fairly common phenomenon. They occur when two agars that have (usually opposite) different parities (aka a crystallographic defect) interact. In your rule two parallel zebra stripes agars with opposite parities do it. Some examples of rules that have them:
B2ek3aijqr4c5a6ek/S1e2-a3-i4irt5i8 (toroidalet)
B2c3aijn4k/S2-k34cnqrt (gmc_nxtman)
Cloudsdale (B2kn3-ekqr4i5eq6n8/S23-aeny4cikqr5ek6ace7c) (GUYTU6J)
R3,C2,S0-5,8,11-22,24,B6,16,NB (rowett)

[lifelong]

Thanks Schiaparelliorbust
I'm afraid my knowledge is fairly basic and (currently) restricted to numbers for B and S. Would like to find out more. Could you explain the nomenclature for B2ek3...etc.? Can these rivers be immortal? The one I'm studying is now over 2.5 billion generation old and does not seem to have repeated itself.

[HelicopterCat3]

Thanks Schiaparelliorbust
I'm afraid my knowledge is fairly basic and (currently) restricted to numbers for B and S. Would like to find out more. Could you explain the nomenclature for B2ek3...etc.? Can these rivers be immortal? The one I'm studying is now over 2.5 billion generation old and does not seem to have repeated itself.

A good place to ask questions about other cellular automata would be in the basic questions thread, you could post your question there and have someone answer it. Welcome to the forums.

[lifelong]

Ok. In the meantime I pasted the rules you cited into Golly so having fun with that

[lifelong]

"Currently too afraid to post any rules in important places in fear of "non-importance""
Shame about that - hope it's not that type of forum!

[Schiaparelliorbust]

Thanks Schiaparelliorbust
I'm afraid my knowledge is fairly basic and (currently) restricted to numbers for B and S. Would like to find out more. Could you explain the nomenclature for B2ek3...etc.? Can these rivers be immortal? The one I'm studying is now over 2.5 billion generation old and does not seem to have repeated itself.

Those rivers are pseudorandom and will probably not stabilize even if you ran them until the heat death of the universe. There are just too many states to go through. I don't know what you mean by "immortal". They will eventually stabilize because there are a finite (though unthinkably large) number of states because patterns in your rule can't escape their bounding box. For letters in rule strings, look at isotropic non-totalistic Life-like cellular automaton. Also, in the future for me to get a notification saying that you posted a message as a reply to mine, please quote my messages. You can also trim quotes so they don't take up as much space.

[HelicopterCat3]

"Currently too afraid to post any rules in important places in fear of "non-importance""
Shame about that - hope it's not that type of forum!

It sure does feel like it sometimes...

[lifelong]

Those rivers are pseudorandom and will probably not stabilize even if you ran them until the heat death of the universe. There are just too many states to go through. I don't know what you mean by "immortal". They will eventually stabilize because there are a finite (though unthinkably large) number of states because patterns in your rule can't escape their bounding box. For letters in rule strings, look at isotropic non-totalistic Life-like cellular automaton. Also, in the future for me to get a notification saying that you posted a message as a reply to mine, please quote my messages. You can also trim quotes so they don't take up as much space.

Thanks for the link. As an architect I find B2c3aijn4k/S2-k34cnqrt particularly fascinating.

[Hunting]

"Currently too afraid to post any rules in important places in fear of "non-importance""
Shame about that - hope it's not that type of forum!

It sure does feel like it sometimes...

I can't think of any reason against that. Academic forums needs high-quality posts.

[HelicopterCat3]

I can't think of any reason against that. Academic forums needs high-quality posts.

Oh absolutely, and I understand just that. By holding yourself back from making unnecessary posts, you better the forums and their knowledge. However, I think that OCA as a whole is a more relaxed forum in the sense that your discoveries don't contribute to those of Life, meaning that whatever you post on other cellular automata, is not too important. It's a sandbox for CA to see how much it can get searched, and to see what unique dynamics and objects lie in them. That's probably why I spend most of my time here. To clarify, I'm not saying that erroneous discoveries, and irrelevant knowledge have a place here because it is in fact, an academic forum. I just think it's fun to discover CA because the Game of Life is, well, a game, no matter what the CA contributes.

[lifelong]

I can't think of any reason against that. Academic forums needs high-quality posts.

Oh absolutely, and I understand just that. By holding yourself back from making unnecessary posts, you better the forums and their knowledge. However, I think that OCA as a whole is a more relaxed forum in the sense that your discoveries don't contribute to those of Life, meaning that whatever you post on other cellular automata, is not too important. It's a sandbox for CA to see how much it can get searched, and to see what unique dynamics and objects lie in them. That's probably why I spend most of my time here. To clarify, I'm not saying that erroneous discoveries, and irrelevant knowledge have a place here because it is in fact, an academic forum. I just think it's fun to discover CA because the Game of Life is, well, a game, no matter what the CA contributes.

The subject is broad and fascinating enough to allow many different motivations, surely forums and academia in general have in common the sharing of ideas and dissemination of information. Through an exchange about what I now know are called 'rivers' I am exploring non-totalistic rules and find the existence of long range rivers that create virtual landscapes fascinating. As a follower of Chaos and fractals the extreme sensitivity to initial conditions is a bonus. So thanks again to my original responder for pointing me in this direction.

[Hunting]

However, I think that OCA as a whole is a more relaxed forum in the sense that your discoveries don't contribute to those of Life, meaning that whatever you post on other cellular automata, is not too important. It's a sandbox for CA to see how much it can get searched, and to see what unique dynamics and objects lie in them. That's probably why I spend most of my time here...

I'd like to quote Dave Greene on that:

Part of why I stay away from the OCA pages is that people seem to like to post a lot of chitchat (as you called it). The email discussion group from the two decades before conwaylife.com came along was a lot more careful about keeping the signal-to-noise ratio high, so I tend to get a little grumpy about having to fight through a lot of wasted space.

The sandboxness of the OCA board is not good and should be changed.

(That quote came from a private message discussion on LeapLife.)

[lifelong]

Nice 26 period non-orthogonal non-diagonal glider

Glider in B2c3aijn4k S2-e34cnqrt.rle

(105 Bytes) Downloaded 87 times

[Naszvadi]

Nice 26 period non-orthogonal non-diagonal glider

It is wrong! It is a 6c/26 diagonal glider according to Oscar:

Code: Select all

x = 35, y = 35, rule = B2c3aijn4k/S2-e34cnqrt
28bo$27bobo$26b2ob2obobo$26bo3bo$26b2ob2o$27bobo$28bo6$17b3o$16b2ob2o$
15bo5bo$16b2ob2o$17b3o2$17bo2$17bo8$2bo$bobo$2ob2obobo$o3bo$2ob2o$bobo
$2bo!

Supported by rules from B2c3aijn4k/S2-en3-ck4qr to B2c3aijn4kqtyz5n6ik7c8/S2-e34cenqrt5eky6-ak78.

[lifelong]

It is wrong! It is a 6c/26 diagonal glider according to Oscar:

Code: Select all

x = 35, y = 35, rule = B2c3aijn4k/S2-e34cnqrt
28bo$27bobo$26b2ob2obobo$26bo3bo$26b2ob2o$27bobo$28bo6$17b3o$16b2ob2o$
15bo5bo$16b2ob2o$17b3o2$17bo2$17bo8$2bo$bobo$2ob2obobo$o3bo$2ob2o$bobo
$2bo!

Supported by rules from B2c3aijn4k/S2-en3-ck4qr to B2c3aijn4kqtyz5n6ik7c8/S2-e34cenqrt5eky6-ak78.

My mistake!