Re: [math-fun] Life's Garden of Eden
acw> I read this, and it is, unfortunately, not the discussion of the proof that I remembered. Could it have been that Conway presented the proof at the talk I went to? I know it was discussed. His "parlor trick" around then was to challenge people to draw Life patterns, and he would construct a predecessor. He was uncannily good at it. Record small GoE: http://homepage.tudelft.nl/37b0y/ Just confirmed by Achim Flammenkamp. --rwg
On Sat, Dec 17, 2011 at 8:05 PM, Bill Gosper <billgosper@gmail.com> wrote:
Record small GoE: http://homepage.tudelft.nl/37b0y/
One thing puzzles me about this. The given GoE pattern fits within a 10x10 square. But the page says Verification We verified our orphan within a 40x40 grid which means a ring of 15 "don't care" cells wide around the orphan. Why would you need to do that? It seems to me all you need to do is verify it in a 12x12 grid, since the configuration of live cells in the 10x10 grid only depends on the configuration of the 12x12 grid in the previous generation. What does using a 40x40 grid accomplish? Andy
Just confirmed by Achim Flammenkamp. --rwg _______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun
-- Andy.Latto@pobox.com
I think that Steve Ward found the argument showing that a Life GOE existed in a 39^2, based on a 13x13 array of 3x3 squares. Rich ----- Quoting Bill Gosper <billgosper@gmail.com>:
acw>
I read this, and it is, unfortunately, not the discussion of the proof that I remembered. Could it have been that Conway presented the proof at the talk I went to? I know it was discussed. His "parlor trick" around then was to challenge people to draw Life patterns, and he would construct a predecessor. He was uncannily good at it.
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