by simon baird

Monday, July 05, 2010

he's like the good will hunting of conway's game of life...

Found out about this on good game, of all places...

So this guy has thrown this up on the Game of Life forum and stunned the Conway's Game of Life boffins.. :) Please enjoy the following expression of the purest of geek enthusiasm (and see links below for more info):

That, if it works as you claim, is undoubtedly the single most impressive construction so far in Life. We'll have to verify it, of course, but that would be the 13th spaceship velocity in Life attained so far. Moreover, you should be able to trivially modify the configuration to achieve an infinite series of spaceship velocities.

And it replicates in only 34 million generations?! The best estimate so far for a typical UCC-based Life replicator was 10^18 generations. I see that you have removed all but the bare minimum -- that is probably the simplest possible self-replicator, and very elegant, too.

I thought that we might see these things appearing by about 2020, but you are a decade ahead of your time! Well, congratulations -- you have single-handedly beaten the collaborative effort between myself, Dave Greene and Paul Chapman to realise a Life replicator. I see that you have opted for an active loop of gliders, rather than a passive tape. Wise decision -- the replicator only takes linear time, not quadratic time. And -- no, way! -- it cannibalises its parent configuration! So, it is an actual spaceship, and not a puffer.
> You should enter this in the Pattern of the Year contest.
Pattern of the Millennium, more like!


http://conwaylife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=399&start=0&sid=a4129b4df4ff2cbfae8e269c7e4b3af1

http://mcxperi.wordpress.com/2010/06/18/first-replicating-creature-spawned-in-life-simulator-physics-math-16-june-2010-new-scientist/


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