Thread for basic questions

[Ethanagor]

Are there any known reactions where a glider hits a constellation and is reflected, but the reflector itself if translated at least one cell, orthogonally or diagonally? If not, how might I go about finding such a reaction?

[drc]

Are there any known reactions where a glider hits a constellation and is reflected, but the reflector itself if translated at least one cell, orthogonally or diagonally? If not, how might I go about finding such a reaction?

Code: Select all

x = 13, y = 11, rule = B3/S23
b2o$o2bo$bobo$2bob2o$3bo2bo$4bobo$5bo2$10b2o$10bobo$10bo!

[Ethanagor]

Are there any known reactions where a glider hits a constellation and is reflected, but the reflector itself if translated at least one cell, orthogonally or diagonally? If not, how might I go about finding such a reaction?

Code: Select all

x = 13, y = 11, rule = B3/S23
b2o$o2bo$bobo$2bob2o$3bo2bo$4bobo$5bo2$10b2o$10bobo$10bo!

This isn't quite what I wanted. In an ideal pattern, the glider would be turned 90 degrees, and the reflector would be moved some number of cells in the original direction of the glider.

[gmc_nxtman]

This isn't quite what I wanted. In an ideal pattern, the glider would be turned 90 degrees, and the reflector would be moved some number of cells in the original direction of the glider.

That sounds quite a bit like Gabriel Nivasch's program, sngdetect, in fact - people have been trying that approach for a while now, and it doesn't seem likely to yield anything, for the next (insert pessimistic number here) years.

[muzik]

I'm pretty sure Dave posted another reaction somewhere, where a glider would react with a constellation of 3 blocks, and produce this exact constellation again but rotated.

[dvgrn]

I'm pretty sure Dave posted another reaction somewhere, where a glider would react with a constellation of 3 blocks, and produce this exact constellation again but rotated.

I think it got mentioned again in the last year or so, but here's an older mention of it. Again it's not quite what was asked for, unfortunately.

It's theoretically possible to engineer a stable constellation with these properties nowadays, but I don't think it's practical yet -- would have to appeal to the old tired "do it with a universal constructor" plan. The constellation would have to be a fairly complex computer with an embedded universal constructor, or maybe two U.C.s each of which is programmed to move the other... all triggered by that one input glider.

Generalizing a little, at least we can do something like this with a stream of N gliders on the same lane now. Recent spiral-growth patterns aren't too far away, and the old idea of using freeze-dried slow salvos to build a knightship comes even closer.

[muzik]

Isolated:

Code: Select all

x = 24, y = 20, rule = B3/S23
21bobo$21b2o$22bo10$2o$2o5$2o5b2o$2o5b2o!

Pretty sure that this, the Snark, and the half-bakery are the only such elementary patterns known with this kind of behaviour.

[blah]

By the way, would you be interested in me posting a newer version of Reasoning Realm?

Yes! Please do so.

Brian Prentice

Okay, I'll post a new version in that thread. But just out of curiosity, why do you want the new version? Is it for the circuit rules or B0 hexagonal generations rules with over 256 states (it can do that) or what?

[Ethanagor]

Ah well. Related note, is there a compilation somewhere of all known still-lives which can be "pushed" by gliders, with the glider being destroyed in the process, or something of the sort?

[bprentice]

But just out of curiosity, why do you want the new version?

I'm simply interested in good CA simulators. Please update your link whenever you make significant improvements.

Brian Prentice

[dvgrn]

Ah well. Related note, is there a compilation somewhere of all known still-lives which can be "pushed" by gliders, with the glider being destroyed in the process, or something of the sort?

For gliders coming one at a time from the same direction in slow salvos, the most complete collection at the moment is probably the one buried in the data folder in Calcyman's slmake archive file.

For synchronized fleets of gliders, I don't know of a big collection; people mostly just run gencols and filter out the specific results theyre looking for.

In either case, it's technically possible to pull or push almost any* glider-constructible still life to any (X,Y) offset you want, if you're willing to spend enough gliders on it. The cheap object moves are mostly pulls not pushes -- blocks, blinkers, and one orientation of a loaf needing only one glider each.

* For the slow-salvo case there might be an object that can't be struck by a single glider from a particular direction, without being destroyed completely, or setting off a reaction that emits gliders. It might still be an open question whether such a thing exists -- does anybody have an example? -- but at the very least they seem to be quite rare compared to the total number of objects out there.

[Ethanagor]

...the most complete collection at the moment is probably the one buried in the data folder in Calcyman's slmake archive file.

Well, I downloaded the massive file. However, I really don't know what is what. A lot of the files have no format attached, but when opened in notepad++ give a series of APGcodes preceded by the words "good" or "bad." I'm rather confused. If this is a complicated thing, I can just search on my own. Is it?

[Saka]

Say UserA is a somewhat quirky life enthusiast. He has 100 posts. 98 of them are in the patterns forum, but each one is on a different thread. The other 2 are in the zfind discussion thread. On his profile, will it say:
Most active forum: Patterns (98% of all posts)
Most active topic: zfind discussion (2% of all posts)
? That would be very strange, but that's how it works right?

[BlinkerSpawn]

Say UserA is a somewhat quirky life enthusiast. He has 100 posts. 98 of them are in the patterns forum, but each one is on a different thread. The other 2 are in the zfind discussion thread. On his profile, will it say:
Most active forum: Patterns (98% of all posts)
Most active topic: zfind discussion (2% of all posts)
? That would be very strange, but that's how it works right?

Well, yeah, that's how the math works out so I don't see why it wouldn't be that way.

[Saka]

Can there be a still life which is a Garden of Eden?

[Sokwe]

Can there be a still life which is a Garden of Eden?

No. Any still life must have at least one predecessor: itself. A related question has been posed: is there a still life whose only predecessors consist of the still life itself along with some suitably separated dying sparks?

[muzik]

Can there be a still life which is a Garden of Eden?

Not exactly a Garden of Eden, but such a pattern (alongside oscillators, spaceships, and I would assume 1D, 2D and self-displacing 1D replicators) would fall under the Unique Father Problem.

[muzik]

Have any spacefillers been made for agars other than zebra stripes?

[Ethanagor]

I guarantee this is a dumb question (most of mine are) but is there any program to find salvos that is good for the less tech-savvy (i.e. doesn't take a lot of steps to compile, has simplistic input and output, etc.)?
If not, is there an algorithm to find salvos by hand other than guess and check? The same question applies to any kind of syntheses, if possible.

[dvgrn]

Have any spacefillers been made for agars other than zebra stripes?

I don't remember any, though I'm good at forgetting obvious things sometimes. The closest thing would be chicken-wire agar greyships, maybe, where you could put spaceship heads on two opposite sides... but it's a lot harder to build something that can stretch even width-2 chicken wire left and right, to say nothing of making the connection on the diagonal between the two stretchers.

I guarantee this is a dumb question (most of mine are) but is there any program to find salvos that is good for the less tech-savvy (i.e. doesn't take a lot of steps to compile, has simplistic input and output, etc.)?
If not, is there an algorithm to find salvos by hand other than guess and check? The same question applies to any kind of syntheses, if possible.

Calcyman's slmake is really highly recommended for slow salvos -- just follow all the steps in the link, save something you want to build in .mc format with the name "infile.mc", and you're good to go. Heck, slmake doesn't even take any command-line parameters, which is more than you can say for most other Life search software.

The hard part might be getting used to Cygwin, if you're using Windows -- starting with downloading it. You'll want the 64-bit version -- and look for the "gcc-g++" package in Developer Tools, and don't get confused by other packages that might start with "gcc" -- you only need that one! (If I remember right.) Then you open the "Cygwin64 Terminal" and type the rest of the compilation and run commands in there. If you need a more detailed walkthrough when you get to that point -- how to put slmake in an appropriate directory and change the path inside the Cygwin terminal -- I can add a few notes to the beginning of the linked post.

There really aren't a lot of search utilities that will find previously unknown syntheses for you. There are definitely some utilities that need to be written, like an exhaustive enumerator for 3-glider collisions (and "fairly comprehensive" for 4-glider collsions) with a way of fingerprinting useful sparks -- but they have't been written yet.

What we have is Catagolue plus a crew of ingenious tinkerers with an increasing amount of experience... and a couple of people like Mark Niemiec who have "expert systems" programmed to automatically generate a good fraction of the "easy" still lifes of a given size. But those expert systems so far definitely seem to need an expert to run them -- they're not out in the public domain ready for anyone to run. And their purpose is mostly just to find the easy syntheses anyway.

[Ethanagor]

The hard part might be getting used to Cygwin, if you're using Windows -- starting with downloading it. You'll want the 64-bit version...

Well, my virus guard says the .exe is unsafe. Is it trustworthy enough for me to override this?

[calcyman]

The hard part might be getting used to Cygwin, if you're using Windows -- starting with downloading it. You'll want the 64-bit version...

Well, my virus guard says the .exe is unsafe. Is it trustworthy enough for me to override this?

Yes, see sections 2.7, 2.8, and 2.9 in the FAQ: https://cygwin.com/faq/faq.html#faq.set ... l-security

[Ethanagor]

The hard part might be getting used to Cygwin, if you're using Windows -- starting with downloading it. You'll want the 64-bit version...

Well, my virus guard says the .exe is unsafe. Is it trustworthy enough for me to override this?

Yes, see sections 2.7, 2.8, and 2.9 in the FAQ: https://cygwin.com/faq/faq.html#faq.set ... l-security

Alright, thanks. Currently installing. It is asking me to select what packages to install; which should I select for these purposes?

[Saka]

Alright, thanks. Currently installing. It is asking me to select what packages to install; which should I select for these purposes?

Here

[drc]

I feel really...'dim' for asking this, but what can I currently do to make myself more useful to the Life community? I've been pondering this but seeing as I'm still very not-up-to-date on current affairs I'd just like to walk myself through some technology and stuff like that.