This week's featured article
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| A polyomino (or simply omino) is a finite collection of orthogonally connected cells. Conway's early investigations of Life and other cellular automata involved tracking the histories of small polyominoes, this being a reasonable way to ascertain the typical behaviour of different cellular automata when the patterns had to be evolved by hand rather than by computer. Polyominoes have no special significance in Life, but their extensive study during the early years lead to a number of important discoveries and has influenced the terminology of Life.
It is possible for a polyomino to be an oscillator. In fact, there are infinitely many examples of such polyominoes, including the cross and its larger analogues. The only other known examples are the block (which has period 1), the blinker, the toad, the star (and its hybrid with cross that gives another extensible family of period-3 oscillators) and (in two different phases) the pentadecathlon.
A polyomino can also be a spaceship, though the only known examples are the lightweight spaceship, the middleweight spaceship, and the heavyweight spaceship.
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In the news
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Did you know...
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- ... that despite being the fourth smallest non-flotilla orthogonal spaceship, loafer did not appear from a single randomly generated soup until 2020?
- ... that all known glider eaters take at least four ticks to recover to their original state after eating a glider?
- ... that among Life-like (outer-totalistic) rules, Conway's Life's "near neighbours" B35/S23, B36/S23, and B38/S23 are not explosive, but B37/S23 is?
- ... that there is roughly one chance in 10^(N/3) that a still life appearing out of random soup will have a population of exactly N cells?
- ... that the number of still lifes with N+1 bits is roughly 2.48 times larger than the number of N-bit still lifes?
- ... that the odds of a randomly-chosen 20 × 20 soup pattern being a methuselah that lasts between N and N + 1000 ticks, are roughly the same as the odds that it will last any amount of time longer than N + 1000 ticks?
- ... that all still lifes up to 17 cells can be synthesized at a cost of less than one glider per cell?
- ... that the first elementary knightship, Sir Robin, was discovered only in 2018, with there having been a very close call in 2004?
- ... that there is a 5 × 2 counterexample to the Coolout Conjecture, proving that patterns that are internally compatible with stability can not always be made part of a larger still life, no matter what cells are added around the edges?
- ... that a Conway's Life pattern representing a complete programmable 8-bit computer, consisting only of buckaroos, p60 glider guns, and glider duplicators, was completed in November 2016?
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Pattern collection
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| The LifeWiki contains one of the most comprehensive catalogues of patterns available on the internet. Within it you will find:
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