Game of Life Mosaics

[rbosch]

I'm a long-time Game-of-Life enthusiast and first-time poster. I recently wrote a paper entitled "Designing Game of Life Mosaics with Integer Programming". I'm hoping that some of you will find it interesting. For the moment, the publisher has classified the paper "free access." The link is

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10. ... LQodCvF98E

If you have questions or comments, email me at rbosch@oberlin.edu.

--Bob

[simsim314]

Integer programming is very interesting direction for GOL. Currently there is no search utilities based in any advanced IP algorithm.

Almost all life utilities are sort of IP problem solver in (0,1) space. While the search utilities write the problem with variable (x1, x2, x3....) having N equations, and ticking some of the Xs to be set to 0 or 1, and see if they come into contradiction in all the equations that contains them.

So in some sense we're solving IP problems in different setups all the time. But we don't use any "smart" algorithm, only "brute force", while the only optimization we use is that if k first equations are not working for (x1, x2...) we should not try the next xs as well (and we also use the fact all our integers are positive, so if for example the sum should be less than 3 and we get 4 - we don't care about other values and declare contradiction).

Do you think you can suggest any better way to search for spaceships/oscillators and other search utilities using more advanced IP algorithms?

[rbosch]

I wrote a follow-up paper, "Two-frame animations in Conway's Game of Life" for the 2015 Bridges Math/Art conference. The Bridges Archive now contains a link to a PDF of the paper:

http://archive.bridgesmathart.org/2015/ ... 5-355.html

The original "Game of Life Mosaics" paper is still "free access" at the Journal of Mathematics and the Arts website:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10. ... ZSRVfm4S70

[triller]

Fascinating.
Is there a repository of RLE files for any of the cited images?
I'd download those!
triller

[Extrementhusiast]

I wrote a follow-up paper, "Two-frame animations in Conway's Game of Life" for the 2015 Bridges Math/Art conference. The Bridges Archive now contains a link to a PDF of the paper:

http://archive.bridgesmathart.org/2015/ ... 5-355.html

While it has only 160 live cells in it, this oscillator (from an agar) fits in a 28*28 square, and has heat 256:

Code: Select all

x = 28, y = 28, rule = B3/S23
10bo7bo$8bobo5bobo$12bo7bo$7b5o3b5o$12bo7bo$8bobo5bobo$8bo3bo3bo3bo$2b
obobo3bo3bo3bo5bo$3bo5bo3bo3bo3b2obobo$2obobobo3bo3bo3bo4bo$3bo4bo3bo
3bo3bobobob2o$bobob2o3bo3bo3bo5bo$3bo5bo3bo3bo3bobobo$7bo3bo3bo3bo$8bo
3bo3bo3bo$2bobobo3bo3bo3bo5bo$3bo5bo3bo3bo3b2obobo$2obobobo3bo3bo3bo4b
o$3bo4bo3bo3bo3bobobob2o$bobob2o3bo3bo3bo5bo$3bo5bo3bo3bo3bobobo$7bo3b
o3bo3bo$9bobo5bobo$7bo7bo$8b5o3b5o$7bo7bo$9bobo5bobo$9bo7bo!