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This week's featured article A spaceship (much less commonly referred to as a glider or a fish) is a finite pattern that returns to its initial state after a number of generations (known as its period) but in a different location. The speed of a spaceship is the number of cells that the pattern moves during its period. This is expressed in terms of c (the metaphorical "speed of light") which is one cell per generation; thus, a spaceship with a period of five that moves two cells to the left during its period travels at the speed of 2c/5. Most known spaceships in Life travel either orthogonally (only horizontal or vertical displacement) or diagonally (equal horizontal and vertical displacement). However, several large Conway's Life spaceships have been engineered that travel in various oblique directions, and it is known that Life has spaceships that travel in all rational directions at arbitrarily slow speeds. Read more... In the news April 8: David Bell constructs and refines a puffer demonstrating that all sufficiently high c/4 diagonal rake periods are achievable. Matthias Merzenich uses this to construct a clean p3532+4N rake. March 31: Entity Valkyrie builds a complete 2c/3-wire-based pseudo-Heisenburp device with 742-tick repeat time. March 27-30: Entity Valkyrie completes a 2c/3 receiver with a repeat time of 876 ticks, which Adam P. Goucher eventually improves to 742 ticks using staged recovery mechanisms; the previous record-setting receivers needed 964 or 970 ticks to recover. March 20: Period1GliderGun discovers a period-26 bouncer-based reflector, the first independent reflector of this period, using components by Nico Brown and Dean Hickerson. March 19: Keith Amling constructs new p6 c/2 orthogonal greystretchers in which the stripes are bounded by extended tables. March 18: Nathaniel Johnston posts a YouTube video about the discovery of the true period-15 glider gun and period-16 glider gun, and the history leading up to those discoveries. March 17: James Pascua discovers the first period-16 90-degree independent reflector based on a suggestion by Matthias Merzenich, using the period-16 glider gun to hassle a honey farm predecessor and produce a banana spark. 90-degree reflectors are known for all periods except 14, 17, and 19 with periods 15, 23, and 26 having only dependent reflectors. March 16-17: Keith Amling completes a new c/4 diagonal unstable puffer engine (only the third known puffer engine at this speed) based on a partial result by Matthias Merzenich. Caleb R. Hilton uses sparkers to stabilise the unstable engine into explicit puffers. David Bell uses this engine to construct the first p52 c/4 diagonal rake, and "b3s23love" and Merzenich use it to substantially reduce the size of the p108 c/4 diagonal rake. Editable news item submissions page • Archive •

Did you know... ... that in Life, no spaceship can exist with a speed of (m, n)c/x where (m + n)/x > 0.5? ... that even without using fixed-cost reverse caber tosser technology, an N-bit strict still life – specifically, some length of long long (...) boat or ship – can be constructed for any odd integer N using no more than 20 gliders, and for any even integer N using no more than 21 gliders, using a temporary tubstretcher? ... that even without using fixed-cost reverse caber tosser technology, some specific N-bit period-2 oscillators can be constructed for any even integer N using no more than 27 gliders, and for any odd integer N using no more than 29 gliders, using a temporary tubstretcher? ... that in 2022, a still life was found containing a finite region whose only predecessor is itself? ... that it was proved in the early 1970s that reflectorless rotating oscillators exist in Life, but none were found until 2018 when Adam P. Goucher completed the 0E0P metacell, and none could be run through a full cycle without specialized hardware until smaller ones were constructed in 2021? ... that there are currently known elementary spaceships with speeds c/7 and c/10 orthogonal, but none with c/8 or c/9? ... that there are currently known elementary spaceships with speeds c/7, c/8, and c/12 diagonal, but none with c/9, c/10 or c/11? ... that Karel's p177 is the highest-period known elementary oscillator with no external support? ... there were no known oscillators with period 43 without the use of adjustable glider loops before the discovery of the period-43 glider gun in September 2022? ... that without the use of Herschel loops or adjustable glider loops, there are no known oscillators with period 89?           Showing 10 items out of 180 More did you know... Pattern collection The LifeWiki contains one of the most comprehensive catalogues of patterns available on the internet. Within it you will find: 1670 patterns (including 691 oscillators, 176 spaceships and 381 still lifes); 3758 images (608 animated and 3150 static); Over 3000 downloadable pattern files; Glider syntheses for 958 patterns. Download pattern collection 6MB .zip archive containing the 5200+ Game of Life RLE pattern files used on the wiki Also available: 38KB .zip archive containing approximately 75 pattern files for other cellular automata