3 ms·
How many steps is the period? How far does it travel in that period? What direction does it go? Does it clean up after itself?
by tantalor 11mo ago
How many steps is the period? How far does it travel in that period? What direction does it go? Does it clean up after itself?
- layer8 11mo agoAs the wiki page states, the period is 133076755768, and it moves by two cells in that time. Spaceships in GoL by definition don’t leave anything behind, they produce the exact same configuration, just shifted across the grid. Given that it starts as a single line, it is symmetric in the axis implied by that line, and hence can’t possibly move diagonally or orthogonal to the line. Hence it moves in the direction of the line.
- tantalor 11mo agoThanks! I was a bit confused by that wiki page because it says "Direction Orthogonal" but like you said that can't be.
- layer8 11mo agoYeah, “orthogonal” here just means “not diagonal”. Since GoL configurations don’t have a distinguished orientation (you can rotate and/or mirror them however you like), it wouldn’t make sense to specify up/down/left/right, at least not without first fixing an (arbitrary) orientation.