4 ms·

Serious question, how did they discover this? AFAIK GoL patterns can't be reverse engineered.

• LeoPanthera 7y ago
  Life is turing complete, so there was no need to “reverse engineer it”, they built a computer that is simply simulating life, in life.
• new2628 7y ago
  You can think about it step-by-step: first you need some rectangular structure that has two well-defined states to represent your cells, then you think of how to implement periodic refresh and communication between neighboring cells, some gadgets for and/or gates, etc. As you have gliders, glider guns, and similar building blocks, it is not that difficult, given enough patience. Very nice to look at though :)
• vecter 7y ago
  Based on following the links in the video details, it looks like it's built around something called the OCTA metapixel [0][1][2]. Conceptually, I could see how once you have an "abstract programmable pixel" with mechanisms to change how they interact with each other, it becomes "straightforward", since you can abstract away the concept of a pixel and its interaction with neighbors. [0] https://www.conwaylife.com/wiki/OTCA_metapixel https://www.conwaylife.com/wiki/OTCA_metapixel [1] https://otcametapixel.blogspot.com/2006/05/how-does-it-work.html https://otcametapixel.blogspot.com/2006/05/how-does-it-work.... [2] https://b3s23life.blogspot.com/2006_09_01_archive.html https://b3s23life.blogspot.com/2006_09_01_archive.html
• __s 7y ago
  For more insight on designing GoL circuits: https://codegolf.stackexchange.com/a/111932 https://codegolf.stackexchange.com/a/111932 The hardware metaphor seems apt, as GoL has a speed of light & the parts operate concurrently So not sure what you mean by reverse engineered, maybe you're getting hung up on Kolmogorov complexity being incomputable