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	>4,674,510,102,782
Results
Total objects	>102,110,142,990,696
Distinct objects	>87,111

Catagolue is an ongoing distributed census of naturally occurring ash objects conducted by Adam P. Goucher, started in 2015. The census is primarily focussed on asymmetric soups in Conway Life, but supports arbitary totalistic and semi-totalistic rules and a variety of symmetries.

The results are obtained by evolving random soups of size 16×16 with density 0.5 in an infinite planar universe; as of June 24, 2016, more than 4,674,510,102,782 soups have been investigated by the census's participants, yielding a total of more than 102,110,142,990,696 objects of 87,111 distinct types. Submissions of new results (called "hauls") are subjected to both statistical tests and peer-review by other participants before being committed 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.

History

Main article: History of Catagolue

Catagolue became operative on February 20, 2015. The B3/S23/C1 census reached a total of one trillion objects on April 24, 2015, ten trillion objects on September 2, 2015, and 100 trillion objects on June 20, 2016.

Results

As of June 24, 2016, more than 4,674,510,102,782 soups have been investigated by the census's participants, yielding a total of more than 102,110,142,990,696 objects. 87,111 distinct objects were identified, including:

• Still lifes:
  • All still lifes up to 13 bits.
  • 616 of the 619 14-bit still lifes.
  • 1252 of the 1353 15-bit still lifes.
  • 1 45-bit still life (Cthulhu).
• Oscillators:
  • 1,499 period 2 oscillators.
  • 249 period 3 oscillators.
  • 24 period 4 oscillators.
  • 8 period 8 oscillators.
  • 7 period 6 oscillators.
  • 6 period 8 oscillators (including Achim's p8, Tim Coe's p8 and smiley).
  • 1 period 14 oscillator.
  • 13 period 15 oscillators.
  • 2 period 24 oscillators (boring p24 and uninteresting p24).
  • 18 period 30 oscillators (including Berger's p30).
  • 3 period 46 oscillators.
• Spaceships:
• 41 period 4 spaceships (including 37 of the 47 standard spaceship flotillae).
• 1 period 16 spaceship (the Coe ship).
• Other patterns:
  • 20 Infinite-growth patterns.

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. 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. 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 submittled 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. Hauls for higher symmetries are subject to statistical verification before being committed, but not (with some exceptions) to peer review.

As of June 23, 2016, higher symmetries have yielded a combined total of at least 3,477,730,563,858 objects of 120,621 distinct types. These include oscillators such Beluchenko's p13, p37 and p51, Achim's p16 and other p16, Karel's p28, 48P31, 68P32.1 and Gabriel's p138, as well as spaceships such as x66 and several different varieties of Schick engines.

Other rules

Main article: List of rules investigated on Catagolue

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.

Rules investigated on Catagolue include:

• B3/S12 (Flock)
• B3/S13 (LowLife)
• B3/S2-i34q (tlife)
• B3/S238 (EightLife)
• B36/S125 (2x2)
• B36/S23 (HighLife)
• B3678/S34678 (Day & Night)
• B368/S245 (Move)

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:

• Conchita: find a soup containing a phoenix.
• Gemini: discover a new twin bees shuttle variant.
• Gigamyriad: contribute 10¹³ objects.
• Limitless: observe a new natural infinite-growth pattern.
• Monarchist: discover a new queen bee shuttle variant.
• Sprotsmanship: contribute one third of a trillion objects to a different rule or symmetry.
• Trillionaire: contribute one trillion objects.
• Voyager: find one of the first twenty occurrences of a spaceship.

Backups

Catagolue census data for the main Conway Life census, B3/S23/C1, is backed up remotely every day at 17:29. For other symmetries or rules, a remote backup may be instigated manually by calling the backupcron endpoint, with the desired rule and symmetry. Remote backups can be viewed by appending the date to the main census URL.

Local backups of Catagolue census data may be made by calling the textcensus endpoint for the desired rule and symmetry.

Limitations

Catagolue does not accept hauls of less than 10,000 soups, or hauls exceeding 1 MiB.

Also see

• Achim Flammenkamp's census
• Online Life-Like CA Soup Search
• apgsearch
• apgcode

External links

• Catagolue homepage
• Results:
  • Census for B3/S23/C1
  • Soup-search results thread
• Software:
  • apgmera (apgsearch 3.x) code repository
  • apgsearch 3.x support thread
  • apgnano (apgsearch 2.x) code repository
  • apgsearch 2.x support thread
  • apgsearch 1.x support thread
  • Hacking apgsearch support thread