Category talk:Patterns that can be constructed with 1000 or more gliders

Observe that this can now be renamed to 'Patterns that can be constructed with 329 gliders'. Calcyman (talk) 22:46, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

Indeed, we should move the page eventually. I think we should wait at least a few days in case small optimizations further reduce the required number of gliders.
~Sokwe 06:28, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Technical note --- category pages can't be moved, it'll have to be created anew under a new name. And yes, I agree, waiting for a little longer until the dust settles is sensible. (Also, for anyone who might be reading this and wondering, the above is in reference to this, primarily.) Apple Bottom (talk) 07:11, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm finding it obscurely troublesome to mention 329 gliders in this context. The whole reverse-caber-tosser episode is pointing out the awkward fact that, from now on, there will be a distinction between "Patterns known to be constructible with X gliders" and "Patterns for which an X-glider construction can be exhibited" -- for all X >=329.

These "Patterns that can be constructed with X gliders" categories in the LifeWiki are really supposed to be in the second of these groups, but that group was invented before this crazy universal-constructor idea came along, so the wording accidentally implies that it's talking about the first group.

... On the other hand, 329 gliders is really a better cut-off than 1000 as far as creating categories is concerned. Any object that takes more than a few hundred gliders to construct will probably be the only object in its category. So really in practice I won't mind if the top glider-expense category turns into "Patterns that can be constructed with exactly 329 gliders" -- as long as there's a link to a reverse-caber-tosser article somewhere to explain why the actual glider recipes given for the patterns listed in that category are mysteriously much higher than 329. Dvgrn (talk) 21:55, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

That's sensible all around.

Looking at Category:Pattern constructible by a given number of gliders, there's no categories between "...276 gliders" and "...1000 or more gliders" anyway, so setting the cut-off to 329 wouldn't affect any articles other than the four macro-ships in the residual category (Demonoid, Gemini, Orthogonoid, parallel HBK).

We wouldn't need to edit any of the articles in question; the pattern infobox templates could be changed to default to 329 for the category if synthesis= was passed a higher number. (The infobox itself could still display the actual number passed, or it could also display 329 if the number passed exceeded that. Our call.)

I do agree that this would have to be explained well, with a prominent link (ideally rendered in large, friendly letters) to an explanatory article on reverse caber-tossers which would of course also have to be written. And said link/explanation should be both in Category:Pattern constructible by a given number of gliders and Category:Patterns that can be constructed with 329 gliders.

A separate explicit note in our documentation wouldn't be necessary if the templates defaulted to Category:Patterns that can be constructed with 329 gliders; users wouldn't see any redlinks to categories that shouldn't exist. But a note in the template documentation that this is the expected and intended behavior, again with a prominent link to an explanation of reverse caber-tossers, would be good.

Speaking of the number 329, perhaps that should be made stuck in a template somewhere deep in the bowels of the wiki as well, so as to allow easier tweaking when (not if!) this goes down in the future.

FWIW, re: the distinction between "known to be constructible with 329 gliders" and "explicitely constructible with X gliders", where X>329 --- the infobox templates could of course also be rigged to include a footnote remarking on this when X is indeed >329. Something along the lines of "†A 329-glider synthesis exists, but has not been explicitely constructed. See reverse caber-tosser for details" or so.

How's that sound? Apple Bottom (talk) 19:36, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes, making the 329 defined in a single place would be useful if it ever gets reduced further (although I must say Goldtiger did an incredibly good job at this -- some of the quartets of blocks in the p256 gun are constructed by 6 gliders instead of 8, for instance, and there are a few cases where pairs of blocks are constructed by 3 gliders).

What is impressive is that 329 is so close to Gustavo's initial estimate of 386 gliders. Of course, using 2015 technology (no bumpers, no 2-engine Corderships) we wouldn't have been able to get anywhere near 386.

Does someone want to create the article for reverse caber-tosser or Formichev universal constructor? I believe the latter refers to the entire assembly, whereas the former doesn't include the shotgun and receding BLSE. Calcyman (talk) 08:35, 14 June 2018 (UTC)