A New Glider Found For Conway's Game of Life 50
An anonymous reader writes "Conway's Game of Life is now forty two years old, but it continues to inspire as well as being the basis of an actively researched field, with computer scientists now announcing they have found a new form of the famous 'glider' pattern (once suggested by Eric S Raymond as the insignia of computer hackers) that runs over a so-called Penrose universe."
not the same (Score:3, Interesting)
They didn't prove anything except that by increasing the complexity of 'Life', they can force some kind of complex behaviour that would have been impossible for the simpler version we're all more familiar with. They changed the rules from 'alive or dead' tiles to '00 01 10 or 11' tiles. There are two different rhomboids in the Penrose tile universe they're playing in, so it seems to make sense that you will find some sufficiently complex means of navigating it if you observe two bits at once.
I think it should have been couched differently: Penrose universe NOT non-repeating, given a sufficiently complex, self-changing pattern to look for.
Faster than light.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:As expected... (Score:4, Interesting)
However, I feel that by allowing more types of tiles, it should be clear that it was possible. For example, with four types of cells, you could have
"front of glider" (becomes "back of glider")
"back of glider" (becomes "not glider")
"side of glider" to keep the rest in check (keeps status unless in contact with "back of glider", when it becomes "not glider")
"not glider" (becomes "side of glider" if in contact with one "side of glider" and one "front of glider", becomes "front of glider" if in contact with two "side of glider" and no "back of glider")
This seems to be what they have done.