Game of Life News: Records Archives

2007 December 09

Records
Update: smaller Garden of Eden previously known

Achim Flammenkamp's 12x11 Garden of Eden --
black cells ON, blue-gray cells must be OFF
Achim Flammenkamp, 23 June 2004

Paul Kwiatkowski has pointed out that Nicolay Beluchenko's 12x12 pattern, based on a 12x13 Garden of Eden pattern from June 14, 2004, is not the smallest known "orphan". Achim Flammenkamp discovered a 12x11 GoE a week later, on June 23, 2004:

It is still an open question whether 11x11 or smaller Garden of Eden patterns exist.

Posted by Dave Greene at 18:13 | Permalink

2006 March 04

Records
Smaller Garden of Eden pattern

smaller (12x12) Garden of Eden pattern with 80 ON cells, based on
Achim Flammenkamp's 81-cell 13x12 orphan from 14 June 2004.
Single cell in rightmost column removed, and two other cells moved.
Nicolay Beluchenko, 11 February 2006

Nicolay Beluchenko has modified a previous 'orphan' (Game of Life pattern which has no possible predecessors, and thus can only appear at generation 0) to slightly reduce both the bounding box and the number of ON cells. Changed cells are shown at right: cells only in the original version are in blue, cells only in the new version are in red.

UPDATE: A week after producing the pattern on which Nicolay Beluchenko based his optimized version, Achim Flammenkamp built a smaller Garden of Eden pattern consisting of 72 ON cells inside a 12x11 bounding box. This 23 June 2004 discovery is the smallest Garden of Eden currently known.

Posted by Dave Greene at 20:34 | Permalink

2005 July 14

Methuselahs
New Record Methuselah

Andrzej Okrasinski has found a new methuselah record holder, a 15 bit intial pattern with a final population of 1623 after 29053 generations. David Bell quickly found a 13 cell predecessor, bringing the record to 29055.

Some of the more unusual objects which make an appearance but which aren't in the final census include a Lightweight Spaceship [9P4H2V0.1], a Fishook Eater [7.3], a Long Barge [8.9], a Big S [14.492], a Bi-Pond [16.2630] and an unnamed 13 bit object [13.182].

Size	Discoverer	Gens	Final Pop.	Final Pattern, Census
13	[David Bell]	29055	1623	102(4.1), 2(4.2), 15(5.1), 6(6.2), 57(6.4), 1(7.2), 18(7.4), 5(8.7), 2(12.41), 135(3P2.1), 1(6P2.1), 1(6P2.2), 28(5P4H1V1.1)
15	[Andrzej Okrasinski]	29053

Note: Not all of the paths of escaped gliders are shown.

Posted by HKoenig at 22:54 | Permalink

2005 February 21

Methuselahs
New Methuselah Records

Tomas Rokicki has announced some of the results of a survey for methuselahs. The table below shows the record holding patterns for given bit sizes. More information can be found at his webpage. Other information about methuselahs, can be found at Dean Hickerson's website. Andrzej Okrasinski also announced his finding of the current record holding pattern.

Size	Name	Gens	Final Pop.	Final Pattern, Census & Discoverer
	r Pentomino	1103	128	8(4.1), 1(5.1), 1(6.2), 4(6.4), 1(7.4), 4(3P2.1), 6(5P4H1V1.1)
5		1105
6		1108
7	Acorn [Charles Corderman]	5206	633	34(4.1), 8(5.1), 3(6.2), 30(6.4), 2(6.5), 5(7.4), 2(8.7), 1(8.8), 41(3P2.1), 13(5P4H1V1.1)
8	[Tomas Rokicki]	7467	952	51(4.1), 2(4.2), 11(5.1), 4(6.2), 35(6.4), 16(7.4), 2(8.7), 1(14.475), 61(3P2.1), 1(6P2.1), 24(5P4H1V1.1)
	Rabbits [Andrew Trevorrow]	17331	1749	109(4.1), 4(4.2), 18(5.1), 7(6.2), 65(6.4), 18(7.4), 3(8.7), 136(3P2.1), 2(6P2.1), 40(5P4H1V1.1)
9	[Paul Callahan]	17410
10	[Tomas Rokicki]	17423
11	[Tomas Rokicki]	17465
12-18	[Tomas Rokicki]	23334	2898	207(4.1), 7(4.2), 23(5.1), 12(6.2), 115(6.4), 2(7.2), 32(7.4), 4(8.7), 171(3P2.1), 1(6P2.1), 2(6P2.2), 70(5P4H1V1.1), 1(9P4H2V0.1)
19	[Andrzej Okrasinski]	28786	3091	196(4.1), 6(4.2), 31(5.1), 9(6.2), 143(6.4), 3(6.5), 34(7.4), 6(8.7), 2(12.41), 1(14.475), 213(3P2.1), 47(5P4H1V1.1)