Catagolue

Catagolue
Conducted by	Adam P. Goucher
Type	Distributed
Contributors	>100
Year(s)	2015 – 2016
Status	Ongoing
Parameters
Universe	Infinite plane
Soup size	16×16
Initial soup density	0.5
Soups searched	≥8,819,866,528,763
Results
Total objects	≥190,212,669,654,406
Distinct objects	≥113,826

Catagolue is an ongoing distributed census of naturally occurring ash objects conducted by Adam P. Goucher, started in late February 2015. The census is primarily focused on asymmetric soups in Conway's Life, but supports arbitrary totalistic and semi-totalistic rules and a variety of symmetries. Over 100 users have contributed to the census.

The results are obtained by evolving random soups of size 16×16 with density 0.5 in an infinite planar universe; as of January 13, 2017, at least 8,819,866,528,763 soups have been investigated by the census's participants, yielding a total of at least 190,212,669,654,406 objects of 112,671 distinct types. Submissions of new results (called "hauls") are subjected to both statistical tests and peer-review by other participants before being committed to the census.

Catagolue is primarily fed by apgsearch, including apgnano (apgsearch 2.x) and apgmera (apgsearch 3.x) as well as Aidan F. Pierce's hacked version supporting arbitrary semi-totalistic cellular automata. Each resulting object is identified by apgsearch by its unique apgcode; the Catagolue website gives overviews over the various classes of objects found, and provides further information as well as sample soups for each object. A simple text-based interface for querying sample soups, including their owners, also exists.

History

Main article: History of Catagolue

Catagolue became operative on February 20, 2015. The B3/S23/C1 census reached a total of one trillion objects on April 24, 2015, ten trillion objects on September 2, 2015, 100 trillion objects on June 20, 2016, and 150 trillion objects on September 4, 2016.

Results

Also see: Most common objects on Catagolue

As of January 13, 2017, at least 8,819,866,528,763 soups have been investigated by the census's participants, yielding a total of at least 190,212,669,654,406 objects. 112,671 distinct objects were identified, including:

• Still lifes:
  • All still lifes up to 13 bits.
  • 617 of the 619 14-bit still lifes.
  • 1,288 of the 1,353 15-bit still lifes.
  • 1 asymmetric 45-bit still life (Cthulhu).
  • 1 D2_+1-symmetric 46-bit still life (professor).
  • 1 D8_1-symmetric 56-bit still life (cloverleaf interchange).
• Oscillators:
  • 1,941 period 2 oscillators.
  • 339 period 3 oscillators.
  • 29 period 4 oscillators.
  • 10 period 5 oscillators (including Elkies' p5 and Silver's p5 above eater).
  • 7 period 6 oscillators.
  • 8 period 8 oscillators (including Achim's p8, Tim Coe's p8 and smiley).
  • 1 period 14 oscillator (tumbler).
  • 15 period 15 oscillators.
  • 2 period 24 oscillators (boring p24 and uninteresting p24).
  • 27 period 30 oscillators (including Berger's p30 and symmetric queen-bee-shuttle 1).
  • 6 period 46 oscillators.
• Spaceships:
  • 41 period 4 spaceships (including 37 of the 47 standard spaceship flotillae).
  • 1 period 16 spaceship (the Coe ship).
• Other patterns:
  • 33 Infinite-growth patterns.

Plots

File:Catagolue still life scatterplot.png Scatter plot of total still life counts vs. populations in B3/S23/C1 as of January 6, 2017.

File:Catagolue distinct still life scatterplot.png Scatter plot of distinct still life counts vs. populations in B3/S23/C1 as of January 6, 2017; the blue line indicates the total number of distinct still lifes per population ( A019473).

Notable patterns

x = 13, y = 10, rule = B3/S23 4bo3bo$2b2obobob2o$bo3bobo3bo$o3b2ob2o3bo$obo7bobo$bo9bo2$4b2ob2o$3bob obobo$4bo3bo! #C [[ THUMBSIZE 2 THEME 6 GRID GRIDMAJOR 0 SUPPRESS THUMBLAUNCH ]] #C [[ THEME 6 GRID GRIDMAJOR 0 THUMBLAUNCH AUTOSTART GPS 4 THUMBSIZE 2 ]]

Rich's p16
(click above to open LifeViewer)
RLE: here Plaintext: here

A variety of notable natural patterns have been submitted to Catagolue:

• The first known natural occurrence of a nonstandard spaceship was found during alpha testing of apgsearch. The soup, which produced an LWSS on HWSS 1, was submitted to the conwaylife.com forums on August 26, 2014 by Adam P. Goucher. Many other nontrivial spaceship flotillae have since been found.
• The first known natural occurrence of a puffer other than the block-laying or glider-producing switch engine, a p1152 made from two switch engines dubbed the pony express, was found in September 2015. Other objects found by apgsearch in asymmetric soups are smiley, Elkies' p5, phoenix 1, and six occurrences of the Coe ship.
• The pufferfish was discovered in the ash of a symmetric soup.
• A copperhead emerged from a D2_+2 soup in April 2016 soon after its initial discovery by zdr, followed by a second one in June 2016 and a third in August 2016; two more copperheads were found in D4_+4 and D8_4 soups in November 2016.
• 112P15 was first discovered in the ash of a symmetric soup in April 2016.
• Rich's p16 was first discovered in the ash of a symmetric soup in July 2016.
• thunk's discovery of a period 28 pre-pulsar-shuttle variant enabled the construction of smaller (in terms of minimum population) period 26 and period 28 pre-pulsar-shuttles.

Sample soups submitted to Catagolue have also led to cheaper glider syntheses for many patterns, including tumbler, eater 2, and smiley.

Higher symmetries

6bo11bo$7b2o7b2o$3bobob2o7b2obobo$2bobo15bobo$3bo17bo$2bo19bo$o9b2ob2o 9bo$b2o8bobo8b2o$b2o6bobobobo6b2o$8bobo3bobo$6bo2bo5bo2bo$6b3o7b3o2$6b 3o7b3o$6bo2bo5bo2bo$8bobo3bobo$b2o6bobobobo6b2o$b2o8bobo8b2o$o9b2ob2o 9bo$2bo19bo$3bo17bo$2bobo15bobo$3bobob2o7b2obobo$7b2o7b2o$6bo11bo! #C [[ THUMBSIZE 2 THEME 6 GRID GRIDMAJOR 0 SUPPRESS THUMBLAUNCH ]] #C [[ THEME 6 GRID GRIDMAJOR 0 THUMBLAUNCH AUTOSTART GPS 4 THUMBSIZE 2 WIDTH 480 HEIGHT 480 ]]

112P15
(click above to open LifeViewer)
RLE: here Plaintext: here

In addition to asymmetric (C1) soups, Catagolue also collects census data for symmetric soups of the following types:

• C2_1, C2_2, C2_4: 180° (two-fold) rotational symmetry
• C4_1, C4_4: 90° (four-fold) rotational symmetry
• D2_+1, D2_+2: reflectional symmetry along an orthogonal line
• D2_x: reflectional symmetry along a diagonal line
• D4_+1, D4_+2, D4_+4: reflectional symmetry along two perpendicular orthogonal lines
• D4_x1, D4_x4: reflectional symmetry along two perpendicular diagonal lines
• D8_1, D8_4: reflectional symmetry along four orthogonal/diagonal through a common center

In addition, the 8x32 pseudo-symmetry is used for soups of size 8×32 instead of 16×16. The 25pct and 75pct pseudo-symmetries were used in the past to investigate soups with initial densities of 0.25 and 0.75 respectively, but they fell into disuse and are not supported by the current version of apgsearch, apgmera 3.x. Hauls for higher symmetries are subject to statistical verification before being committed, but not (with some exceptions) to peer review.

As of January 13, 2017, higher symmetries have yielded a combined total of at least 16,316,580,643,381 objects of 238,176 distinct types, including:

• Still lifes:
  • All still lifes up to 12 bits.
  • 238 of the 240 13-bit still lifes.
  • 585 of the 619 14-bit still lifes.
  • 1,010 of the 1,353 15-bit still lifes.
  • 11 240-bit still lifes.
  • 8 248-bit still lifes.
  • 1 D8_1-symmetric 256-bit still life.
  • 1 D8_1-symmetric 264-bit still life.
  • 1 D8_1-symmetric 272-bit still life.
• Oscillators:
  • 27,838 period 2 oscillators.
  • 2,873 period 3 oscillators.
  • 521 period 4 oscillators.
  • 509 period 5 oscillators.
  • 395 period 6 oscillators.
  • 22 period 7 oscillators (including 38P7.2).
  • 42 period 8 oscillators.
  • 19 period 9 oscillators (including the worker bee and the snacker).
  • 31 period 10 oscillators (including introvert, extrovert and two variants of 128P10.2).
  • 16 period 11 oscillators (Achim's p11, several variants of Jason's p11, and several four-fold variants of 38P11.1).
  • 1 period 12 oscillator (44P12.2).
  • 1 period 13 oscillator (Beluchenko's p13).
  • 1 period 14 oscillator (tumbler).
  • 277 period 15 oscillators (including Karel's p15 and 112P15).
  • 3 period 16 oscillators (Achim's p16, Achim's other p16 and Rich's p16).
  • 1 period 22 oscillator (48P22.1).
  • 11 period 24 oscillators (including the p24 shuttle).
  • 2 period 28 oscillators (Karel's p28 and a p28 pre-pulsar-shuttle variant).
  • 4 period 29 oscillators (four variants of the p29 pre-pulsar-shuttle).
  • 116 period 30 oscillators (including Eureka and three variants thereof).
  • 1 period 31 oscillator (48P31).
  • 1 period 32 oscillator (68P32.1).
  • 2 period 37 oscillators (two variants of Beluchenko's p37).
  • 3 period 40 oscillators (Beluchenko's p40, and two unnamed oscillators composed of figure eights and octagon IIs).
  • 10 period 46 oscillators.
  • 1 period 51 oscillator (Beluchenko's p51).
  • 1 period 60 oscillator.
  • 6 period 120 oscillators.
  • 2 period 138 oscillators (two variants of Gabriel's p138).
• Spaceships:
  • 57 period 4 spaceships (including x66).
  • 1 period 10 spaceship (the copperhead).
  • 3 period 12 spaceship (the lightweight, middleweight and heavyweight Schick engine).
• Other patterns:
  • 281 Infinite-growth patterns (including a period 8 blinker puffer first found by Robert Wainwright in 1984)

Patterns seen but not properly recognized by the client (see Limitations below) include Karel's p177 and a D8_1-symmetric variant of the p29 pre-pulsar shuttle.

Plots

File:Catagolue still life scatterplot (higher symmetries).png Scatter plot of total still life counts vs. populations in B3/S23 (higher symmetries) as of January 6, 2017.

File:Catagolue distinct still life scatterplot (higher symmetries).png Scatter plot of distinct still life counts vs. populations in B3/S23 (higher symmetries) as of January 6, 2017; the blue line indicates the total number of distinct still lifes per population ( A019473).

Slow salvos

Catagolue started collecting data on objects created by slow salvos on January 13, 2017, using the SS pseudo-symmetry.

As of January 15, 2017, slow salvos have yielded a total of at least 195,046,097,989 objects of 1,837 distinct types, including:

• Still lifes:
  • All still lifes up to 10 bits.
  • 43 of the 46 11-bit still lifes.
  • 82 of the 121 12-bit still lifes.
  • 125 of the 240 13-bit still lifes.
  • 202 of the 619 14-bit still lifes.
  • 216 of the 1,353 15-bit still lifes.
  • 244 of the 3,286 16-bit still lifes.
  • 174 of the 7,773 17-bit still lifes.
  • 173 of the 19,044 18-bit still lifes.
  • 138 of the 45,759 19-bit still lifes.
  • 120 of the 112,243 20-bit still lifes.
  • 75 of the 273,188 21-bit still lifes.
  • 82 of the 672,172 22-bit still lifes.
  • 32 of the 1,646,147 23-bit still lifes.
  • 12 of the 4,051,732 24-bit still lifes.
  • 7 of the 9,971,377 25-bit still lifes.
  • 6 of the 24,619,307 26-bit still lifes.
  • 3 of the 60,823,008 27-bit still lifes.
  • 4 of the 150,613,157 28-bit still lifes.
  • 2 of the 926,068,847 30-bit still lifes.
  • 1 31-bit still life.
  • 1 32-bit still life.
  • 1 40-bit still life.
• Oscillators:
  • 38 period 2 oscillators.

Plots

File:Catagolue still life scatterplot b3s23 (slow salvos).png Scatter plot of total still life counts vs. populations in B3/S23 (slow salvos) as of January 15, 2017.

File:Catagolue distinct still life scatterplot b3s23 (slow salvos).png Scatter plot of distinct still life counts vs. populations in B3/S23 (slow salvos) as of January 15, 2017; the blue line indicates the total number of distinct still lifes per population ( A019473).

Other rules

Main article: List of rules investigated on Catagolue

Catagolue supports arbitrary totalistic rules and semi-totalistic rules (in Hensel notation); in practice, only non-exploding rules can reasonably be investigated. More than 1,000 different rules have been looked at as of November 15, 2016.

Rules investigated on Catagolue include:

• B3/S12 (Flock)
• B3/S13 (LowLife)
• B3/S2-i34q (tlife)
• B3/S238 (EightLife)
• B345/S5 (Long Life)
• B36/S125 (2x2)
• B36/S23 (HighLife)
• B3678/S34678 (Day & Night)
• B368/S245 (Move, aka Morley)
• B38/S23 (Pedestrian Life)
• B38/S238 (HoneyLife)

Contributor engagement

Contributors to Catagolue have user pages tracking their contributions to the main Conway Life census, B3/S23/C1. In addition to providing an overview of number of objects submitted recently compared to other users, user pages list important discoveries and awarded badges.

Users are credited for discoveries if they find one of the first 20 occurrences of an interesting object: any spaceship (other than the glider), any oscillator, any linear growth pattern, or any sufficiently small (14-bit) or large still life. Certain other types of still lifes, such as Eater 2 precursors, are also credited.

The following badges are currently awarded for contributions to B3/S23/C1:

• Conchita: find a soup containing a phoenix.
• Gemini: discover a new twin bees shuttle variant.
• Gigamyriad: contribute 10¹³ objects.
• Limitless: observe a new natural infinite-growth pattern.
• Monarchist: discover a new queen bee shuttle variant.
• Sprotsmanship: contribute one third of a trillion objects to a different rule or symmetry.
• Trillionaire: contribute one trillion objects.
• Voyager: find one of the first twenty occurrences of a spaceship.

Interesting new objects are additionally announced on Twitter by an unofficial Twitter bot.

Backups

Catagolue census data for the main Conway Life census, B3/S23/C1, is backed up remotely every day at 17:29; the first such backup was made on September 24, 2015. For other symmetries or rules, a remote backup may be instigated manually by calling the backupcron endpoint, with the desired rule and symmetry. Remote backups can be viewed by appending the date to the main census URL.

Local backups of Catagolue census data may be made by calling the textcensus endpoint for the desired rule and symmetry.

Limitations

Server

Catagolue does not accept hauls exceeding 1 MiB; additionally, hauls must contains a minimum of 10,000 soups or 250,000 objects.

The site accepts arbitrary symmetries.

Client

Although the apgsearch family of programs has bespoke support for flotillae composed of two standard spaceships in Conway's Life, it can fail to properly separate larger non-interacting groups, or groups of any size in non-Life rules. Pseudo still lifes composed of many constituent parts may also fail to be separated properly.

The maximum period for spaceships and oscillators is 1,000 in apgsearch 1.x, 4,000 in apgnano (apgsearch 2.x) and 1,280 in apgmera (apgsearch 3.x); higher-period objects are classified as PATHOLOGICAL. The maximum bounding box for any spaceship, oscillator or still life is 40×40; larger objects are classified as ov_ (oversized). High-period linear-growth patterns may not be identified and instead reported as zz_LINEAR.

Web frontend

Although Catagolue verifies that an object in a given rule behaves as specified by its code, the site makes no attempt to reject non-canonical codes (e.g. xp2_222 rather than xp2_7 for the blinker); furthermore, the site accepts various anomalous prefixes (e.g. xp0 and xq0). No attempt is made to normalize or reject anomalous rules (e.g. "b33s23").

Also see

• Other censuses:
  • Achim Flammenkamp's census
  • Andrzej Okrasinski's census
  • Online Life-Like CA Soup Search
• Related topics:
  • apgsearch
  • apgcode
• Tutorials:
  • Tutorials/Contributing to Catagolue

External links

• Catagolue homepage

Results

• Census for B3/S23/C1
• Statistics for B3/S23/C1

• Soup search results (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums

• Soup search results in rules other than Conway's Life (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums

Client software

• apgmera (apgsearch 3.x) code repository

• apgsearch 3.1 (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums
• apgnano (apgsearch 2.x) code repository

• apgsearch 2.2 (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums

• apgsearch v1.0 (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums

• Hacking apgsearch (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums

Unofficial browser extension

• Catagolue Reloaded browser extension (Opera)

• Catagolue browser extension (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums

Unofficial Twitter bot

• Unofficial Twitter bot operated by Ivan Fomichev

• Twitter bot (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums