Unique names for all displacements - project

[muzik]

Currently we have a small selection of trivial or "common names" for commonly encountered spaceship and replicator displacements, which see use from regularly for orthogonal and diagonal movement, to rarely for flamingoships and co. However, beyond displacements of (6,1) or for any but two displacements where the second value isn't 1, there exists no common name at all for them.

What we have currently:
(0,1) - orthogonal
(1,1) - diagonal
(2,1) - knight
(3,1) - camel
(4,1) - giraffe
(5,1) - ibis
(6,1) - flamingo
(3,2) - zebra
(4,3) - antelope

I thought it would be a fun idea to invent names for the currently unnamed displacements (think Zeitler's scale naming project but for all possible coprime displacements on a square grid), if for no reason in particular other than to have names for them, given the impracticality of remembering thousands of different animal names to cover every unique spaceship displacement that we've found so far in the SSSSS alone. Seeing such terms in common CA parlance (even only another five or so of them) could possible have the benefit of evoking an atmosphere of slight whimsy in an otherwise starkly academic setting which could prove attractive to potential new Lifenthusiasts, among maybe other things. Or maybe this is an overall extremely stupid idea that should not be taken seriously in any capacity and I should be completely barred from coming up with new ideas when sufficiently tired and in dire need of sleep.

Either way, my proposal for a displacement of (23,5) would be waterbearwise, for obvious reasons (since I doubt anything else with a displacement of (23,5) will become more notable than it to the Life community). Any other suggestions?

[dvgrn]

Either way, my proposal for a displacement of (23,5) would be waterbearwise, for obvious reasons (since I doubt anything else with a displacement of (23,5) will become more notable than it to the Life community). Any other suggestions?

The animal names are all based on the movement of equivalent fairy chess pieces. Maybe Ralph Betza's funny notation will have a few more terms along similar lines?

I kind of doubt that newly coined names for all the offsets between flamingowise and waterbearwise will ever end up seeing much actual use, though.

[Ian07]

We actually made a spreadsheet for this back in 2018 containing most of the displacements up to (10,10): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... r20sM/edit (it's comment only though)

[Entity Valkyrie 2]

Either way, my proposal for a displacement of (23,5) would be waterbearwise, for obvious reasons (since I doubt anything else with a displacement of (23,5) will become more notable than it to the Life community). Any other suggestions?

The animal names are all based on the movement of equivalent fairy chess pieces. Maybe Ralph Betza's funny notation will have a few more terms along similar lines?

I kind of doubt that newly coined names for all the offsets between flamingowise and waterbearwise will ever end up seeing much actual use, though.

I use Betza's funny notation to write down how a chess piece moves, not the actual notation. (Note: this is conditional Betza notation, not original Betza notation.

White Pawn:

P = (mfWcfF[if P.y not = 7])(mfR2[if P.y=2])(clW[if prevmove.black=((P.x)-1, (P.y)+2), ((P.x)-1, P.y)]then mfW)(crW[if prevmove.black=((P.x)+1, (P.y)+2), ((P.x)+1, P.y)]then mfW)(mfWcfF promoteto([Q],[R],,[N])[if P.y=7])

[Layz Boi]

NGL. Up until seeing this thread, I thought some guys just referred to any oblique displacement as "knight." I thought it was just some old-timey convention that is becoming less common.