Pool Fun

[Tropylium]

A fun and easy way to discover billiard table oscillators: fire up a Life variant supporting perma-on cells, draw an enclosure with them, maybe add some regular cells to induce asymmetry, and watch what happens inside. With some luck (and some familiarity with what billiard tables tend to look like to begin with), after a while some batch of chaos will settle into a pattern that also works in Life.

Starting with the stator of a known billiard table frequently turns out to quite easily generate it. Some other rotors frequently turn up elsewhere as well (cuphook, Gray counter, R2D2, burloaferimeter, and the 4-cell babbling brooks in particular).

For now, six discoveries in the p3 to p5 range I'm not seeing in the DRH collection (though some of them look deceivingly simple?):

Code: Select all

x = 83, y = 15, rule = B3/S23
76b2o$74bo2bo$9bo18b2o44b3o$bo3b2obobo6b2o10bo$obobobobobo5bo2bo7bo4bo
8b2o4b2ob2o5bobo12b7o$b2obo3b2o5bobo2bo5bob5o8bo6bob2o5b2obob2o7bo4bo
2bo$3bob2o8bob4o5bo11b2obo6bo11bobo5bo2bob2o3b2o2bo$3bo4b2o2b2obobo5b
2obobob3o5bob2ob2obobo8b2obobo5b3o6bo2b3o$2obobo3bo2bo2b6o2bobo7bobo7b
obobo9bo2bobob2o5b4o3b2o$2obob4o5bo5bo5b3obobob2o7bob2o6b2o3bo3bob2o4b
o9bo$4bo10b5o12bo11bo8bo2bobo3bo8b9o$6bo10bo8b5obo9bobo10b2obobobo$5b
2o19bo4bo10b2o15bobo11b2ob2o$29bo30bo12b2ob2o$29b2o!