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Schick Engine wrong bounding box info

Posted: March 8th, 2012, 12:57 pm
by Pooping_Alien
The smallest bounding box for Schick engine is not that big. It is 9x9 with smallest ships and smallest phase of the Reactor (but with the flame cut off since it's not essential for the pattern).
Twin LWSS has a length of 5 and width of 9 - since each LWSS is 5 squares long and 4 squares wide, and they have a 1-cell gap at two of their four stages. Behind the spaceships is a single empty row, and behind that is the Core (whose smallest form is 1-3-3 "tank"). So for smallest possible forms of both heads and core we have a bounding box of 9x9

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ooo___ooo
o__o_o__o
o_______o
o_______o
_o_o_o_o_
_________
____o____
___ooo___
___ooo___

Re: Schick Engine wrong bounding box info

Posted: March 8th, 2012, 4:15 pm
by Sokwe
A pattern is not considered a spaceship unless it returns to its exact initial state (so there can't be extra cells). Since the pattern you posted never returns to its initial state, it is not a spaceship (but it is a spaceship predecessor):

Schick engine predecessor:

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***...***        ***...***
*..*.*..*        *..*.*..*
*.......*        *.......*
*.......*        *.......*
.*.*.*.*.        .*.*.*.*.
.........  --->  .........
....*....        ....*....
...***...        ...***...
...***...        ...***...
.........        .........
.........        .........
.........        .........
.........        ..*...*..
.........        ..*...*..
.........        .*.*.*.*.
.........        ...***...
.........        ...***...
.........        ....*....
Usually, the bounding box for a periodic, non-growing pattern is considered to be the minimum bounding box needed to contain the pattern through its entire period. The following shows all of the cells that are ever alive during the evolution of the Schick engine (starting from the state that makes the bounding box minimal):

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.........        ..*.....*..
.........        .***...***.
.........        *****.*****
.........        *****.*****
.........        *****.*****
.........        *****.*****
***...***        ***********
*..*.*..*        ***********
*.......*        ***********
*.......*        ***********
.*.*.*.*.        ..*******..
.........  --->  ...*****...
....*....        ...*****...
...***...        ...*****...
..**.**..        ...*****...
...***...        ....***....
...***...        ...*****...
...***...        ..*******..
...*.*...        ..*******..
...*.*...        ...*****...
....*....        ....***....
.........        ....***....
.........        .....*.....
By this measure, the bounding box is 11x23

Re: Schick Engine wrong bounding box info

Posted: March 8th, 2012, 7:25 pm
by Pooping_Alien
Ok. And, is there a name for the phase that looks like a hollow arrow (the stage on which it's easier to add the extra LWSS's)?
Those two LWSS's perturb the flame on "crown" stage to produce a blinker

And, last one: Is it OK to use "surface" and "splash" for phases of LWSS/MWSS/HWSS/Pecanins Monster (commonly the "fishes")?
Figure in the first post depicts the Schick Firebox attached to two "fishes" in splash phase.

Re: Schick Engine wrong bounding box info

Posted: March 9th, 2012, 10:32 am
by Tropylium
Pooping_Alien wrote:Ok. And, is there a name for the phase that looks like a hollow arrow (the stage on which it's easier to add the extra LWSS's)?
Pooping_Alien wrote:Is it OK to use "surface" and "splash" for phases of LWSS/MWSS/HWSS/Pecanins Monster (commonly the "fishes")?
I don't think there's much terminology for individual phases of a pattern around at all? Call them whatever you want, but they seem unlikely to catch on all that much.

More generally tho… I've observed that a lot of Life patterns seem to altenate between a phase with mostly S2/underpopulated cells, and phases with mostly S3/overpopulated cells, so general phase type terminology might come useful; "empty" and "full" could work (or something like "sparse"/"dense", "open"/"close"). A third category with hardly any dying cells at all is also sometimes seen (maybe "growth" or "near-still").

Among oscillators, toad, beacon, mold and unix are perfect full/empty alternation examples, and figure 8 is almost perfect as well (generation 6 has some D0 sparks that don't allow calling it entirely full). This covers *WSS phases as well, and the Schick engine also does a near-perfect job at full/empty alternation. Your "hollow arrow" phase is, starting from the (full) bullet heptomino phase, the 2nd empty phase.