Game of Life News

A pair of Gliders can be used to shift a Pentadecathlon over one cell while changing its phase by four generations. This interaction takes a total of 34 generations to complete.

From this, David Bell has built a structure, that he calls a "Pentadecathlon Crane", which uses this interaction to continously "lift" the Pentadecathlon. It uses a set of four Period 184 Slide Guns (Glider Guns in which every Glider produced follows a different track, each farther from the main gun mechanism) to strike the Pentadecathlon every 94 generations. (Shown here are Generations 0 and 376, with the Pentadecathlon having been shifted four cells to the North.)

Nicolay Beluchenko also pointed out that this mechanism can be used to create Pentadecathlon Hassler-type oscillators. Hasslers are oscillators in which a simpler object is repeatedly shifted back and forth. Here's a Period 188 version.

Posted by HKoenig at 08:40 | Permalink

Nicolay Beluchenko has found some new oscillators. First is a new Period 7 oscillator (on right) which is based on a variation of a symmetrical Period 7 Oscillator found earlier by Dean Hickerson.

Next are a new Period 12 Oscillator and a new variation in the family of known Period 29 oscillators.

Finally there is a Period 13 Oscillator which can be combined with itself and with other oscillators. First are examples of the three ways in which two of these can share a common block. Jason Summers also pointed out that four of these oscillators can be combined to create an oscillator where none of the cells are stable, making it the first such oscillator known with a prime period greater than two.

This Period 13 Oscillator can also be combined with objects of other periods to create objects with much longer periods that are multiples of 13. Examples here show oscillators with periods of 39, 52, 65, 78 and 104 generations. (The Period 39 by Jason Summers; the rest were found by Beluchenko.)

Posted by HKoenig at 15:41 | Permalink