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A knightship is any spaceship that moves like a knight in chess - i.e. neither orthogonally, nor diagonally but rather at a slant. A spaceship is any cyclical
by pasabagi 9y ago
A knightship is any spaceship that moves like a knight in chess - i.e. neither orthogonally, nor diagonally but rather at a slant.
A spaceship is any cyclical pattern that ends in a different position to where it started.
Elementary means it's not composed from other, smaller entitiies. You can compose a lot of stuff from gliders and other elements.
- stuntkite 9y agoThank you! Very informative. I'm excited to play with GoL this weekend and experiment with it.
- pasabagi 9y agoI can reccomend Golly - one of the algorithms it uses (Hashlife) is interesting in itself. Also, the lifeWiki is fascinating.
- Maybestring 9y agoThere's a good Dr Dobbs article about Hashlife, 'An algorithm for compressing space and time' http://www.drdobbs.com/jvm/an-algorithm-for-compressing-space-and-t/184406478 http://www.drdobbs.com/jvm/an-algorithm-for-compressing-spac...
- samfriedman 9y agoWow, the Elementary constraint really blows my mind. I've seen all sorts of crazy machinery built up out of gliders and reactions and such, but the fact that this new entity is "purpose-built" without any sub-elements is what I find to be the most impressive.