Thread for basic questions

[JP21]

Is there a non-totalistic modification of dr (Or doeabit supports non-totalistic rule originallu)? Iwant to run iy in LeapLIFE.

Can't understand what you mean.

Dr is a search program.

Your spelling!!!!

[Ian07]

While doing some wiki work I noticed a discrepancy in Dean Hickerson's oscillator collection. Take this oscillator:

Code: Select all

x = 10, y = 5, rule = B3/S23
4b2o$b4obob2o$ob2o2bob2o$bo4bo$5b2o!

The wiki refers to it as candlefrobra and claims it was found by Robert Wainwright in 1984. Dean Hickerson, however, does not name the oscillator and claims that he found it himself in September 1989. Meanwhile, he gives the name "candlefrobra" to the following oscillator, and claims that one was found by Wainwright in 1984 and named due to its being a variant of candelabra:

Code: Select all

x = 39, y = 7, rule = B3/S23
21b2o3b2o3b2o$2ob2o15bo2bobo2bobo2bob2o$2obo16b4ob4ob4obo$3bo31bo$3bob
4ob4ob4o16bob2o$2b2obo2bobo2bobo2bo15b2ob2o$6b2o3b2o3b2o!

Can someone explain this who's more familiar than I am with CGoL history? Is it just a mistake on Hickerson's part?

EDIT: Hickerson also claims that Jason's p6 was actually found by Achim Flammenkamp on July 25, 1994.

[dvgrn]

While doing some wiki work I noticed a discrepancy in Dean Hickerson's oscillator collection. ["candelabra" vs. "candlefrobra"] ...

Can someone explain this who's more familiar than I am with CGoL history? Is it just a mistake on Hickerson's part?

If anything I'd suspect a mistake by Stephen Silver in compiling the Life Lexicon. That error would then have been copied into the LifeWiki, and everyone has been looking up "candlefrobra" in one of those places ever since.

There are very few early uses of either "candelabra" or "candlefrobra" to go on, though. And then there's the related word "frob", which I can only find a few uses of:

From: Dean Hickerson
Date: Tue, 8 Mar 94 13:01:25 PST
Subject: Oscillators in Life & HighLife


As promised, here are some oscillators that work in both Life and
HighLife. No doubt there are others; I just checked the ones that I
included in the oscillator collection. First, period 3:

Code: Select all

...................................................oo
....................................................o
.......................................oo.......oo.o......oooo
.......................................o.......o..o.......o..o
.....................................o.o.......o........ooo..ooo
......o...........o..................oo..........o......o......o
..o.oo.o.oo.......ooo...o.ooo.....oo..........o..o......o......o
.o.o...o.oo......o.o...o.o.......o.o.........o.oo.......ooo..ooo
..o....o......ooo.o...ooo........o...........o............o..o
......oo................o.......oo..........oo............oooo

                                                       2 eaters        eaters +

Next, period 4. The stable part of the heavyweight emulator had to be
modified to make it work; the 2 smaller versions also work.

Code: Select all

............o....
...o.o.....o.o.................................oo.oo..oooo..oo.oo..
......o.............oo...oo..................o..o.o..oooooo..o.o..o
..o..o....oo...o.....o.o.o....oo........oo...oo....oooooooooo....oo
.o.o.o....o.....o....oo.oo....oo.oo..oo.oo.......oo..........oo....
.o..o........o.o.....o.o.o.....o..o..o..o.......o..o........o..o...
..oo........oo......oo...oo....oo.oooo.oo........oo..........oo....

  mold         mazing        monogram                       HW emulator (modified)

Code: Select all

................................................................ooo.....
.............................................................oo.oo......
.............................................................oo.oo......
..............................................................o.........
................................oo............oo........................
..oo.........o..................oo............oo......oo................
...o.........ooo......................................oo.oo...o.........
...o.o..........o.............oooo..........oooo.......o..o..oo.oooo.oo.
....o.o........o..........oo.o....o.....oo.o....o......oo.oooo.oo..o..o.
......oo.oo....o..o.......oo.oo...o.....oo.o..o.o..............o...oo.oo
.........oo.......o..........o..o.o.oo.....o..o.o.oo..................oo
...oo...........o.o..........o.o..o.oo.....o.o..o.oo....................
....o...........oo..oo........oooo..........oooo...............o........
.ooo................o.o.....................................oo.oo.......
.o....................o.......oo............oo..............oo.oo.......
......................oo......oo............oo.............ooo..........

eater/block         confused          pinwheel           clock II
    frob                  eaters

The eater/block frob is nothing to do with a candlefrobra, I think. Etymology is discussed a bit here:

-2536 From: Bill Gosper
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 1994 22:34-0800
Subject: Bill's comments on p4 collection

...

> I haven't heard the name "elastic frob" before;
> what exactly does it refer to?

Sorry, old hackerspeak. The official definition of "frob" was
"protruding arm or trunnion", but it actually meant "something
to be nervously manipulated." V.t.: frobulate. Archaic: frobnitz.
Trendy: frobBOZ.

... So I don't have anything definite yet, but Dean Hickerson's discovery claim seems plausible.

EDIT: Hickerson also claims that Jason's p6 was actually found by Achim Flammenkamp on July 25, 1994.

This one seems pretty clear. Achim did indeed send an email containing a "Jason's p6" on July 25, 1994. Jason Summers didn't become an active Lifenthusiast until 1999 or so, so that's some unambiguous prior art I think.

Seems like the solution in both of these cases might not be to do any renaming. Would have to figure out what to do with "killer candlefrobras", for example. Instead, maybe just note that 1) two different objects seem to have been called "candlefrobra", for mysterious reasons... and 2) Jason Summers accidentally ended up with ownership of Jason's p6 not for discovering it first, but for synthesizing it first.

-- Maybe a redirect from "Achim's p6", though? I'm surprised there isn't already some other Achim's p6.

I'll follow the LifeWiki's lead if and when I ever get around to another Life Lexicon update.

[Ian07]

Instead, maybe just note that 1) two different objects seem to have been called "candlefrobra", for mysterious reasons... and 2) Jason Summers accidentally ended up with ownership of Jason's p6 not for discovering it first, but for synthesizing it first.

-- Maybe a redirect from "Achim's p6", though? I'm surprised there isn't already some other Achim's p6.

All of these are now done. I think you're right about it being a mistake on Silver's part - in fact, here's my theory on how this happened. When numbering the oscillators in his collection, Hickerson starts counting from zero; first object on first row is 3.0.0, first object on second row is 3.1.0, etc. Silver may have forgotten this for a second while looking at the collection, so when he saw that "candlefrobra" was 3.7.0, he assumed it meant the seventh row rather than the eighth row, and so was actually looking at the object immediately above it.

[JP21]

Help me out here.
Why can't I make non-totalistic rules work in WLS? (Windows text box Error: Cannot set Life rules!)

[dvgrn]

Why can't I make non-totalistic rules work in WLS? (Windows text box Error: Cannot set Life rules!)

Jason Summers' original Windows Life Search came out in late 1999. Alan Hensel's 'neighbors2' notation for isotropic rules didn't even exist at that point.

I could be wrong, but I don't recall that support for isotropic rules ever made it into any version of WLS. Widespread support for isotropic rules is really only a very recent phenomonon.

[Hunting]

Why can't I make non-totalistic rules work in WLS? (Windows text box Error: Cannot set Life rules!)

Try AlephAlpha's online search tool that supports INT rules!

(WLS is one of the few search tools that didn't yet have a non-totalistic modification, I think.)

[Hunting]

How did the early Lifenthusiast find the non-XWSS based puffers? Can the same process be applied to LeapLife?

Why am I asking this kind of question all day?

[gameoflifemaniac]

What's the difference between C1 and G1 symmetries?

[Saka]

What's the difference between C1 and G1 symmetries?

C1 is just regular asymmetric 16x16 apgsearch, while G1 is a separate symmetry for searches that use GPU preprocessing, which discards uninteresting soups and only gives the more interesting ones to the program. Separate symmetries are needed because the GPU discards uninteresting soups and thus alters the results.

[JP21]

Who is Jason Summer? Does he have an account here?

[Hunting]

Does he have an account here?

Apparently yes.

[Saka]

Can someone explain how QuickLife works to me? I've been trying to understand how it works for a while now, but I just dont get it.

[Naszvadi]

Which pattern is the smallest known c5/d puffer or rake?

[dvgrn]

Can someone explain how QuickLife works to me? I've been trying to understand how it works for a while now, but I just dont get it.

"Details of the algorithm can be found in Golly's source code, specifically in the files qlifealgo.h and qlifealgo.cpp."
There are a lot of good comments in those two files, which are enough to get me thinking that I understand generally how QuickLife works, even though I really don't in any detail. Short summary: divide universe into tiles, kind of like HashLife's quadtrees except the smallest unit is a 4x8-cell "slice" (fits in 32 bits). The next smallest unit is a 32x8-cell "brick", and then there are various levels of "supertiles" starting at 256x32.

Bricks store two generations of a pattern, so they're 64 bytes each. When a brick's contents are stable (i.e., there's nothing there but p1 or p2 stuff) then it's nice and boring and predictable -- no processing has to be done on it. It just sits there like, um, like a brick, until some nearby brick goes chaotic along an adjacent edge and QuickLife has to care about what's in the boring brick.

That and various bit-twiddling and compiler tricks account for QuickLife's speed. In how much detail do you want to understand any of that, and are there any specific comments in the source code that particularly don't make any sense?

[gameoflifemaniac]

Is Sawtooth 177 the smallest possible sawtooth?

[calcyman]

Is Sawtooth 177 the smallest possible sawtooth?

By cell count? No, because an RCT-based sawtooth is possible with a repeating minimum population of 143.

[dvgrn]

Is Sawtooth 177 the smallest possible sawtooth?

By population or bounding box? As far as anyone knows right now, yes in either case -- excluding the RCT-based objects calcyman mentioned that nobody can actually build right now. But if history is any guide, no, Sawtooth 177 may well not hold the record forever.

[Kazyan]

Besides RCT, I suspect that the next model of smallest-sawtooth will have to be some mechanism that allows a small <c/2 ship to burn a blinker puffer fuse.

[Naszvadi]

Which pattern is the smallest known c5/d puffer or rake?

Bump.

[dvgrn]

Which pattern is the smallest known c5/d puffer or rake?

Bump.

58P5H1V1. Often you can just look up a speed article on the LifeWiki, like c/5 diagonal, to get all the relevant links for earliest, smallest, and so on.

[Hunting]

Which pattern is the smallest known c5/d puffer or rake?

Bump.

58P5H1V1. Often you can just look up a speed article on the LifeWiki, like c/5 diagonal, to get all the relevant links for earliest, smallest, and so on.

Puffer or rake, not spaceship.

[dvgrn]

Puffer or rake, not spaceship.

D'oh! My reading comprehension often leaves something to be desired. Does a wickstretcher count?

Code: Select all

x = 94, y = 75, rule = B3/S23
45b2o$45b2o$44bo2bo$41b2obo2bo$47bo$39b2o3bo2bo$39b2o5bo$40bob5o$41bo
3$38b3o$38bo$36b2o$30b2o4bo$30b3o3bo$28bo4bo$28bo3bo$32bo$27b2obobo$
25b2o5bo$25b2o4b2o$27b4o3$20b2o8bo$20b2o7b3o$19bo2bo5bo$16b2obo2bo4bob
obo$22bo3bobo2bobo$14b2o3bo2bo2b2o5bo2bo$14b2o5bo4bob2o3b3o$15bob5o8bo
$16bo12bobo4b2o3b3o$31bo3bo2bo2b3o$30b2o2bob3ob2o$13b3o17bobo4bo$13bo
19bobo4b2ob3o$11b2o21b2o5b3obo$5b2o4bo29bobo2b2o$5b3o3bo23b3o3bob2o2bo
9bo$3bo4bo24b3ob4ob5o3bo5b2o16b2o$3bo3bo25b2o3bo2bo4bo2bobo3b2o3b5ob2o
b3obo3b3o3b2o$7bo25b2o2b5o8b2o2bo3b2o2bobob3o2bo2bo5bo2b2o2bobo$2b2obo
bo29bo2b2o12bo2b6o6bo5bo3b2o2bob3o2bo$2o5bo29b2o2bo11bo3bo8bobo7bo7b3o
2bo2b2o$2o4b2o31bob2o10bo2bo6bo28b2o$2b4o33b2o12bobo8bo$54bo32bo$42bo
12b2o29b3o$41bobo$42bo$86bo2bo$88bo$85b2o$85b3o$86b3o$86b2o$89bo$86bo
2bo2$85bo2bo$85bo$84bo2bo$83bo$77bo3b2o$76b4o$75bo7bo$74b5o$74bobobo$
73b5o4bo$72bo5bo2bo$71b2obo2bo$74bo2bo$75bo!

I think all the c/5 diagonal puffers are the huge crazy high-period constructions, some of which are mentioned in the c/5 diagonal article; don't think there's anything besides the above wickstretcher that I'd even want to try calling "smallest". p85, p235, and p1450 are in the jslife moving objects update; the jslife collection doesn't even have a velocity-c5d folder.

[HartmutHolzwart]

Matthias Merzenich maintains jslife-moving-master as an update to jslife. There is a c5d folder there! Check out on Github, newest version from Jan, 22nd., 2020.

Due to recent progress by Andrew Wade and others, that collection might need another update, though.

[dvgrn]

Matthias Merzenich maintains jslife-moving-master as an update to jslife. There is a c5d folder there! Check out on Github, newest version from Jan, 22nd., 2020.

I did mention the jslife-moving collection, but should have added an actual link to the relevant folder. I was looking at an out-of-date local copy; an old p1585 rake was added since I downloaded it, but not surprisingly it's not anything you could call "small" either.