Catagolue
| Catagolue | |
| Conducted by | Adam P. Goucher |
|---|---|
| Type | Distributed |
| Year(s) | 2015 – 2016 |
| Status | Ongoing |
| Parameters | |
| Universe | Infinite plane |
| Soup size | 16×16 |
| Initial soup density | 0.5 |
| Soups searched | >4,648,355,446,612 |
| Results | |
| Total objects | >101,538,813,013,087 |
| Distinct objects | >86,933 |
Catagolue[note 1] is an ongoing distributed census of naturally occurring ash objects conducted by Adam P. Goucher, started in 2015.
The results are obtained by evolving random soups of size 16×16 with density 0.5 in an infinite planar universe; as of June 23, 2016, more than 4,648,355,446,612 soups have been investigated by the census's participants, yielding a total of more than 101,538,813,013,087 objects of 86,933 distinct types. Submissions of new results (called "hauls") are subjected to both statistical tests and peer-review by other participants before being comitted to the census.
Catagolue is primarily fed by apgsearch, including apgnano (apgsearch 2.x) and apgmera (apgsearch 3.x) as well as Aidan F. Pierce's hacked version supporting arbitrary semi-totalistic cellular automata. Each resulting object is identified by apgsearch by its unique apgcode; the Catagolue website gives overviews over the various classes of objects found, and provides further information as well as sample soups for each object.
Notable patterns
A variety of notable natural patterns have been submitted to Catagolue:
- The first known natural occurrence of a nonstandard spaceship was found during alpha testing of apgsearch. The soup, which produced an LWSS on HWSS 1, was submitted to the conwaylife.com forums on August 26, 2014 by Adam P. Goucher.[1] Many other nontrivial spaceship flotillae have since been found.
- The first known natural occurrence of a puffer other than the block-laying or glider-producing switch engine, a p1152 made from two switch engines dubbed the pony express, was found in September 2015.[2] Other objects found by apgsearch in asymmetric soups are smiley, Elkies' p5, phoenix 1, and two occurences of the Coe ship.
- The pufferfish and 112P15 were both discovered in the ash of symmetric soups, and a copperhead emerged from a D2_+2 soup in April 2016 soon after its initial discovery by 'zdr', followed by a second one in June 2016.
Sample soups submittted to Catagolue have also led to cheaper glider syntheses for many patterns, including tumbler, eater 2, and smiley.
Higher symmetries
In addition to asymmetric (C1) soups, Catagolue also collects census data for symmetric soups of the following types:
- C2_1, C2_2, C2_4: 180° (two-fold) rotational symmetry
- C4_1, C4_4: 90° (four-fold) rotational symmetry
- D2_+1, D2_+2: reflectional symmetry along an orthogonal line
- D2_x: reflectional symmetry along a diagonal line
- D4_+1, D4_+2, D4_+4: reflectional symmetry along two perpendicular orthogonal lines
- D4_x1, D4_x4: reflectional symmetry along two perpendicular diagonal lines
- D8_1, D8_4: reflectional symmetry along four orthogonal/diagonal through a common center
In addition, the 8x32 pseudo-symmetry is used for soups of size 8×32 instead of 16×16. The 25pct and 75pct pseudo-symmetries were used in the past to investigate soups with initial densities of 0.25 and 0.75 respectively, but they fell into disuse and are not supported by the current version of apgsearch, apgmera 3.x.
Other rules
Catagolue supports arbitrary rules, both totalistic rules and semi-totalistic rules in Hensel notation; in practice, only non-exploding rules can reasonably be investigated. More than 600 different rules have been investigated as of June 23, 2016.
Contributor engagement
Contributors to Catagolue have user pages tracking their contributions to the main Conway Life census, B3/S23/C1. In addition to providing an overview of number of objects submitted recently compared to other users, user pages list important discoveries and awarded badges.
Users are credited for discoveries if they find one of the first 20 occurences of an interesting object: any spaceship (other than the glider), any oscillator, any linear-growth pattern, or any sufficiently small (14-bit) or large still life.
The following badges are currently awarded for contributions to B3/S23/C1:
Monarchist: discover a new queen bee shuttle variant.
Gemini: discover a new twin bees shuttle variant.
Limitless: observe a new natural infinite-growth pattern.
Conchita[note 2]: find a soup containing a phoenix.
Voyager: find one of the first twenty occurrences of a spaceship.
Trillionaire: contribute one trillion objects.
Gigamyriad: contribute 1013 objects.
Sprotsmanship[note 3]: contribute one third of a trillion objects to a different rule or symmetry.
Backups
Catagolue census data for the main Conway Life census, B3/S23/C1, is backed up remotely every day at 17:29.[note 4] For other symmetries or rules, a remote backup may be instigated manually by calling the backupcron endpoint,[endpoint 1] with the desired rule and symmetry. Remote backups can be viewed by appending the date to the main census URL.[endpoint 2]
Local backups of Catagolue census data may be made by calling the textcensus endpoint for the desired rule and symmetry.[endpoint 3]
Limitations
Catagolue does not accept hauls of less than 10,000 soups, or hauls exceeding 1 MiB.
Also see
Notes
- ↑ The name "Catagolue" is an amalgam of "Catalogue" and "GoL" (Game of Life).
- ↑ The "Conchita" badge is named after Conchita Wurst, the Austrian singer who won the 2014 Eurovision Song Contest with the song "Rise Like a Phoenix".
- ↑ Sic.
- ↑ Ramanujan time, after the Hardy–Ramanujan number (1729) of G. H. Hardy's and Srinivasa Ramanujan's.
Endpoints
References
- ↑ Adam P. Goucher (August 26, 2014). "Re: Thread For Your Accidental Discoveries". ConwayLife.com forums. Retrieved on June 12, 2016.
- ↑ gameoflifeboy (September 28, 2015). "Re: Soup search results". ConwayLife.com forums. Retrieved on June 12, 2016.