Conway S Game Of Life Spaceship Gun

Guy in 1970 while john conway s group was attempting to track the evolution of the r pentomino gliders are the smallest spaceships and they travel diagonally at a speed of one cell every four generations or the glider is often produced from randomly generated starting.

Conway s game of life spaceship gun. A normal copperhead at this phase will turn into a goldenhead in drylife and conversely this phase will return to a copperhead in normal life. For many years this glider gun was the smallest one known in life although other rules had smaller guns. The discovery of the glider gun eventually led to the proof that conway s game of life could function as a turing machine. A screenshot of a puffer type breeder red that leaves glider guns green in its wake which in turn create gliders blue animation the game of life also known simply as life is a cellular automaton devised by the british mathematician john horton conway in 1970.

For example in conway s game of life the ability of the glider life s simplest spaceship to transmit information is part of a proof that life is turing complete. The lightweight spaceship in conway s game of life a spaceship also referred to as a glider 1 or less commonly a fish 2 and commonly shortened to ship is a finite pattern that returns to its initial state after a number of generations known as its period but in a different location. Two loafer guns were built by shannon omick on february 19th of the same year using these syntheses. Since then many guns have been constructed with various periods and that fire spaceships of various speeds.

Bill gosper discovered the first glider gun in 1970 earning 50 from conway. For other meanings of the term glider see glider disambiguation. A single gosper s glider gun creating gliders. The glider or featherweight spaceship is the smallest most common and first discovered spaceship it travels diagonally across the life grid at a speed of c 4 gliders are important because they are easily produced for an example see the gosper glider gun can be collided with each other to form more complicated objects.

In march 2016 the unexpected discovery of a small but high period spaceship enthused the game of life community. It was named copperhead. The first gun to be discovered the gosper glider gun was found by bill gosper in 1970 being the first known pattern in conway s game of life to exhibit infinite growth.