Life, uh, uh, finds a way
March 14, 2016 8:52 AM Subscribe
Meet copperhead, a new, weird spaceship that was recently discovered by enthusiasts of Conway's Life.
Okay so knowing nothing about the field of Conway's Life enthusiasm (well I guess not nothing nothing, I know what a spaceship is without clicking the link) -- do folks mostly just sit there fiddling randomly with cell setups and then when one turns into a spaceship or one of the other doodads (reflectors... other things) or is there some kind of mathematical/geometric/somethingsomething approach one can take to attempting to discover them?
posted by beerperson at 9:05 AM on March 14, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by beerperson at 9:05 AM on March 14, 2016 [1 favorite]
Huh. That's a wiki I didn't know existed.
Well, see you guys on Thursday.
posted by Mayor West at 9:06 AM on March 14, 2016 [43 favorites]
Well, see you guys on Thursday.
posted by Mayor West at 9:06 AM on March 14, 2016 [43 favorites]
Okay so knowing nothing about the field of Conway's Life enthusiasm (well I guess not nothing nothing, I know what a spaceship is without clicking the link) -- do folks mostly just sit there fiddling randomly with cell setups and then when one turns into a spaceship or one of the other doodads (reflectors... other things) or is there some kind of mathematical/geometric/somethingsomething approach one can take to attempting to discover them?
This one was found by a program that searches through possible starting patterns to see if they have the right behavior. If you're looking for spaceships, that behavior is "An i-by-j group of cells that repeats itself a certain distance away after n generations."
If you let i, j, and n be very large, the search gets unwieldy very quickly. So people have to put constraints on them. In the past, mostly people did it by limiting the search to small values of n, but letting i and j be large. The person who found this one did the opposite: limited the search to small values of i and j, but let n be large. That meant the spaceship that they found was much smaller, with a much simpler structure, than a lot of the spaceships that have been found recently. Being simple and small is a useful property for a spaceship to have if you're trying to do stuff with it, and is also just really elegant and cool if you're into that sort of thing.
posted by nebulawindphone at 9:20 AM on March 14, 2016 [23 favorites]
This one was found by a program that searches through possible starting patterns to see if they have the right behavior. If you're looking for spaceships, that behavior is "An i-by-j group of cells that repeats itself a certain distance away after n generations."
If you let i, j, and n be very large, the search gets unwieldy very quickly. So people have to put constraints on them. In the past, mostly people did it by limiting the search to small values of n, but letting i and j be large. The person who found this one did the opposite: limited the search to small values of i and j, but let n be large. That meant the spaceship that they found was much smaller, with a much simpler structure, than a lot of the spaceships that have been found recently. Being simple and small is a useful property for a spaceship to have if you're trying to do stuff with it, and is also just really elegant and cool if you're into that sort of thing.
posted by nebulawindphone at 9:20 AM on March 14, 2016 [23 favorites]
I am completely weirded out that this is called a spaceship, but it's very cool and interesting.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:48 AM on March 14, 2016
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:48 AM on March 14, 2016
The wiki is great fun, half of the passages could be lifted straight from a sci-fi novel.
> It derives its name from the latin, gemini, meaning twins, describing its 2 identical halves, each of which contains three Chapman-Greene construction arms.
> Very slow self-constructing knightships with the minimum step size of (2,1) — or spaceships with any other (x,y) step size — can now be created using known Geminoid technology.
> Pre-pulsar spaceship (or PPS for short) is any of three different period 30 c/5 orthogonal spaceships in which a pre-pulsar is pushed by a pair of spiders.
> Sometimes combinations of smoking tagalongs are puffers - such as a P48 blinker puffer produced by attaching two Coe engines to LWSS's pulling the Schick engine.
And so on.
posted by lucidium at 9:49 AM on March 14, 2016 [20 favorites]
> It derives its name from the latin, gemini, meaning twins, describing its 2 identical halves, each of which contains three Chapman-Greene construction arms.
> Very slow self-constructing knightships with the minimum step size of (2,1) — or spaceships with any other (x,y) step size — can now be created using known Geminoid technology.
> Pre-pulsar spaceship (or PPS for short) is any of three different period 30 c/5 orthogonal spaceships in which a pre-pulsar is pushed by a pair of spiders.
> Sometimes combinations of smoking tagalongs are puffers - such as a P48 blinker puffer produced by attaching two Coe engines to LWSS's pulling the Schick engine.
And so on.
posted by lucidium at 9:49 AM on March 14, 2016 [20 favorites]
Yeah, lucidium, I thought the same of “The stable pattern that results from bunnies has 1744 cells and consists of 136 blinkers (including 14 traffic lights), 109 blocks, 65 beehives (including three honey farms), 40 gliders, 18 boats, 18 loaves, seven ships, four tubs, three ponds and two toads.”
posted by scruss at 9:55 AM on March 14, 2016 [12 favorites]
posted by scruss at 9:55 AM on March 14, 2016 [12 favorites]
Sounds like a hell of a Minecraft mod, scruss.
posted by nubs at 9:57 AM on March 14, 2016 [9 favorites]
posted by nubs at 9:57 AM on March 14, 2016 [9 favorites]
Life, uh, uh, finds a way
Jurassic Park?
Meet copperhead,
Oh, a nature post. I get it.
a new, weird spaceship
Wait. SciFi?
that was recently discovered
WTF?!
by enthusiasts of Conway's Life.
Oh, godsdammit.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 9:57 AM on March 14, 2016 [31 favorites]
Jurassic Park?
Meet copperhead,
Oh, a nature post. I get it.
a new, weird spaceship
Wait. SciFi?
that was recently discovered
WTF?!
by enthusiasts of Conway's Life.
Oh, godsdammit.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 9:57 AM on March 14, 2016 [31 favorites]
I had no idea there was this much of a Conway's Game of Life obsessive community, but as I said when I first saw this go by, I suppose I could probably have extrapolated its existence from a few simple axioms. I don't have the spare brain to actually pay this stuff real attention, but my inner 14 year old writing shitty GoL implementations in TI-BASIC is thrilled that it exists.
posted by brennen at 9:59 AM on March 14, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by brennen at 9:59 AM on March 14, 2016 [2 favorites]
The Game of Life fan community has more argot than rock climbers and surfers put together.
posted by radicalawyer at 10:38 AM on March 14, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by radicalawyer at 10:38 AM on March 14, 2016 [3 favorites]
It's like they're LARPing a Stanislaw Lem novel! I'm thinking "His Master's Voice" more than "Solaris".
posted by Earthtopus at 10:39 AM on March 14, 2016 [13 favorites]
posted by Earthtopus at 10:39 AM on March 14, 2016 [13 favorites]
136 blinkers (including 14 traffic lights), 109 blocks, 65 beehives (including three honey farms), 40 gliders, 18 boats, 18 loaves, seven ships, four tubs, three ponds and two toads.
Shoot, a fella' could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff.
I could also have gone with "...or a baby's arm, holding an apple."
posted by The Tensor at 10:40 AM on March 14, 2016 [12 favorites]
Shoot, a fella' could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff.
I could also have gone with "...or a baby's arm, holding an apple."
posted by The Tensor at 10:40 AM on March 14, 2016 [12 favorites]
If you don't appreciate the Game of Life, just go in a simulator and whip up an R-pentomino and see what happens, it's fascinating. While you watch it you'll see gliders, among other things. The fascination for people is to come up with other creative engines.
It's cool that there's a new spaceship, looking at the shape I'm surprised it wasn't discovered by accident already.
posted by graymouser at 11:40 AM on March 14, 2016 [2 favorites]
It's cool that there's a new spaceship, looking at the shape I'm surprised it wasn't discovered by accident already.
posted by graymouser at 11:40 AM on March 14, 2016 [2 favorites]
I saw this when it came up as a comment a few days ago, and I'm super glad that it got its own post because it's really interesting to me! I used to play around with Conway's Life as a kid and never could understand how people made the crazy-complex scenarios that came as demos in my simulator, but this article goes a long way toward explaining it. Thanks!
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 12:06 PM on March 14, 2016
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 12:06 PM on March 14, 2016
Interestingly enough, it doesn't appear anyone has written any fiction based on Conway's Life. After that novel series written by Greg Egan about a universe where one basic constant of spacetime was slightly different, a novel series about spaceships and fliers and emitters and pulsars and Geminoid Technology seems completely rational and expected.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 12:45 PM on March 14, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 12:45 PM on March 14, 2016 [1 favorite]
Egan wrote one, Mr. Encyclopedia. Grab "Permutation City". While not actually about Life per se, cellular automata figure heavily in its plot and setting.
posted by egypturnash at 1:20 PM on March 14, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by egypturnash at 1:20 PM on March 14, 2016 [1 favorite]
Why am I not surprised.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 1:23 PM on March 14, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 1:23 PM on March 14, 2016 [1 favorite]
Hey, AIs in bunkers under the University of Western Australia have to have something to fill the time...
posted by tavella at 1:38 PM on March 14, 2016
posted by tavella at 1:38 PM on March 14, 2016
Piers Anthony touched on Life, and cellular automata in general, in his book 0X. I think that also was the book that talked about hexaflexagons.
posted by Tool of the Conspiracy at 2:35 PM on March 14, 2016
posted by Tool of the Conspiracy at 2:35 PM on March 14, 2016
As mentioned in the Wikipedia page, there's also a competitive two-player version of Life played by characters in David Brin's Glory Season.
posted by The Tensor at 2:38 PM on March 14, 2016
posted by The Tensor at 2:38 PM on March 14, 2016
I love the sentence "Dean Hickerson built a sawtooth that uses copperhead's ability to turn a heavyweight spaceship into a loaf."
posted by rifflesby at 2:57 PM on March 14, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by rifflesby at 2:57 PM on March 14, 2016 [5 favorites]
Poor Conway. Whenever I see an interview with him where the GoL gets mentioned, he sighs and acts like a obscure rock star who's had a forty-year career creating serious new music but all anyone wants to talk about is that one huge hit from the 70s that he dashed off in a hotel room. He says, and who's to disbelieve him, that the mathematics and implications have all been thoroughly explored and that lode's been mined out long ago, but the culture won't let it be.
And every generation of young nerds will rediscover it and go wow, and it will never die. And what it's really good at is generating a fannish subculture with its own vocabulary and history and occasional moments in the daylight.
Which is of no interest to Conway, but is fun for the rest of us.
posted by Devonian at 3:09 PM on March 14, 2016 [7 favorites]
And every generation of young nerds will rediscover it and go wow, and it will never die. And what it's really good at is generating a fannish subculture with its own vocabulary and history and occasional moments in the daylight.
Which is of no interest to Conway, but is fun for the rest of us.
posted by Devonian at 3:09 PM on March 14, 2016 [7 favorites]
Isn't Wolfram still expecting it to turn into the singularity?
posted by Artw at 3:11 PM on March 14, 2016
posted by Artw at 3:11 PM on March 14, 2016
Devonian: "Poor Conway. Whenever I see an interview with him where the GoL gets mentioned, he sighs and acts like a obscure rock star who's had a forty-year career creating serious new music but all anyone wants to talk about is that one huge hit from the 70s that he dashed off in a hotel room."
Here's one such interview. The highlights:
Schleicher: One achievement of yours that you didn’t mention is one that you are perhaps best known for, the invention of the Game of Life, the theory of cellular automata.
Conway: Yes, that is true. And sometimes I wish I hadn’t invented that game.
Schleicher: Why?
Conway: Well, because I am pretty egotistical. When I see a new mathematical book for a general audience, I turn to the index, I look for a certain name in the back, and if I see this name, it shines out at me somehow. And it says, page 157, pages 293–298, or whatever. So I eagerly turn to those pages, hoping to see some mention of my discoveries. I only ever see the Game of Life. I am not ashamed of it; it was a good game. It said things that needed to be said. But I’ve discovered so many more things, and that was, from a certain point of view, rather trite—to me anyway. It is a bit upsetting to be known for this thing that I consider in a way rather trivial. There are lots of other things to be discovered about surreal numbers. And the Free Will Theorem is recent, and therefore I am still flushed with enthusiasm about it.
Schleicher: I understand what you are saying. But is it possible that the Game of Life has perhaps not been fully developed or understood? Maybe there is a theory waiting to be discovered?
Conway: No, it’s been overdeveloped. You won’t interest me in the Game of Life.
posted by crazy with stars at 4:31 PM on March 14, 2016 [8 favorites]
Here's one such interview. The highlights:
Schleicher: One achievement of yours that you didn’t mention is one that you are perhaps best known for, the invention of the Game of Life, the theory of cellular automata.
Conway: Yes, that is true. And sometimes I wish I hadn’t invented that game.
Schleicher: Why?
Conway: Well, because I am pretty egotistical. When I see a new mathematical book for a general audience, I turn to the index, I look for a certain name in the back, and if I see this name, it shines out at me somehow. And it says, page 157, pages 293–298, or whatever. So I eagerly turn to those pages, hoping to see some mention of my discoveries. I only ever see the Game of Life. I am not ashamed of it; it was a good game. It said things that needed to be said. But I’ve discovered so many more things, and that was, from a certain point of view, rather trite—to me anyway. It is a bit upsetting to be known for this thing that I consider in a way rather trivial. There are lots of other things to be discovered about surreal numbers. And the Free Will Theorem is recent, and therefore I am still flushed with enthusiasm about it.
Schleicher: I understand what you are saying. But is it possible that the Game of Life has perhaps not been fully developed or understood? Maybe there is a theory waiting to be discovered?
Conway: No, it’s been overdeveloped. You won’t interest me in the Game of Life.
posted by crazy with stars at 4:31 PM on March 14, 2016 [8 favorites]
looking at the shape I'm surprised it wasn't discovered by accident already.
Seriously. One of its generations even looks like a rocket ship with a short little shockwave of exhaust coming out of it. Surely back in the 80s some kid must have drawn that pattern on a copy of life running on their Apple ][.
posted by radwolf76 at 8:07 PM on March 14, 2016
Seriously. One of its generations even looks like a rocket ship with a short little shockwave of exhaust coming out of it. Surely back in the 80s some kid must have drawn that pattern on a copy of life running on their Apple ][.
posted by radwolf76 at 8:07 PM on March 14, 2016
I've not delved very deeply into GoL, but every time I play with it I'm struck that maybe there is something deep and mysterious it can tell us about our own origins. And that this deep mystery is so subtle and elegant that it may take many generations for us to finally figure it out. Or I could be completely wrong.
posted by ambulocetus at 9:23 PM on March 14, 2016
posted by ambulocetus at 9:23 PM on March 14, 2016
Man, Conway is harsh. Can we crowdfund the development of a spaceship in the form of a crying face that leaves a trail behind it roughly approximating the letters WHY DON'T YOU LOVE ME DADDY?
posted by No-sword at 9:57 PM on March 14, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by No-sword at 9:57 PM on March 14, 2016 [4 favorites]
The GoL is also kind of a feature (slightly altered" in David Brin's "GLory Season"
posted by kittensofthenight at 10:38 PM on March 14, 2016
posted by kittensofthenight at 10:38 PM on March 14, 2016
Interestingly enough, it doesn't appear anyone has written any fiction based on Conway's Life.
Egan wrote one, Mr. Encyclopedia. Grab "Permutation City". While not actually about Life per se, cellular automata figure heavily in its plot and setting.
Egan's written more than one book about cellular automata. Schild's Ladder is about a galactic civilization dealing with a region of space where the laws of physics are different and possibly not hospitable to life or even matter as we know it. A region that is expanding at half the speed of light. That detail might send a chill up your spine if you are familiar with c/2 spacefillers like Max.
(In Life, "c" is the fastest possible speed anything can propagate, representing movement from one cell to the next in a single generation.)
posted by straight at 11:11 PM on March 14, 2016 [2 favorites]
Egan wrote one, Mr. Encyclopedia. Grab "Permutation City". While not actually about Life per se, cellular automata figure heavily in its plot and setting.
Egan's written more than one book about cellular automata. Schild's Ladder is about a galactic civilization dealing with a region of space where the laws of physics are different and possibly not hospitable to life or even matter as we know it. A region that is expanding at half the speed of light. That detail might send a chill up your spine if you are familiar with c/2 spacefillers like Max.
(In Life, "c" is the fastest possible speed anything can propagate, representing movement from one cell to the next in a single generation.)
posted by straight at 11:11 PM on March 14, 2016 [2 favorites]
Conway and Life is kinda of like Alec Guinness and Star Wars, in my mind; it's okay to like both and for the artist to resent the work for becoming the irritatingly dominant touchpoint for their whole career. I love life and CA in general and will always owe John Conway a debt for making that possible, but I figure I can pay that debt by not gladhanding him about it if I ever end up in the same room.
posted by cortex at 6:34 AM on March 15, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by cortex at 6:34 AM on March 15, 2016 [2 favorites]
The discovery of a new spaceship speed immediately opened a few new areas of research, which are being explored now.
I think I understand the significance of this discovery now.
posted by hawthorne at 6:35 AM on March 15, 2016
I think I understand the significance of this discovery now.
posted by hawthorne at 6:35 AM on March 15, 2016
I find it very interesting that the pattern is:
- simple
- small
- not obvious when randomizing a game of life; when you play with it some patterns emerge quickly (alternating three by one stick, gliders, etc)
so it is interesting that it took this long to discover the copperhead
posted by vrittis at 4:57 PM on March 15, 2016
- simple
- small
- not obvious when randomizing a game of life; when you play with it some patterns emerge quickly (alternating three by one stick, gliders, etc)
so it is interesting that it took this long to discover the copperhead
posted by vrittis at 4:57 PM on March 15, 2016
Also, the brief shit fight in the middle of the original thread of the discovery amuses me. Someone took the fact zdr was not thread-sitting to be a mortal insult to the Life community.
posted by tavella at 5:55 PM on March 15, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by tavella at 5:55 PM on March 15, 2016 [1 favorite]
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