This Life lexicon is compiled by Stephen A. Silver from various sources
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Not long afterwards c/12 diagonal puffers were found (see switch engine). Discounting wickstretchers, which are not puffers in the conventional sense, no new velocity was obtained after this until David Bell found the first c/3 orthogonal puffer in April 1996. Other new puffer speeds followed over the next several years.
Many spaceships that travel orthogonally at a speed less than c/2 have useful side or back sparks. These can be used to perturb standard spaceships that approach from behind. A common technique for creating puffers for a new speed uses a convoy of the new spaceships to create debris from an approaching standard spaceship such that a new standard spaceship is recreated on the same path as the original one. This forms a closed loop, resulting in a high-period puffer for the new speed.
As of June 2018, puffers have been found matching every known velocity of elementary spaceship, except for c/6 and c/7 diagonal and (2,1)c/6. It is also generally easy to create puffers based on macro-spaceships, simply by removing some part of the trailing cleanup mechanism.
The Game of Life is not your typical computer game. It is a cellular automaton, and was invented by Cambridge mathematician John Conway.
This game became widely known when it was mentioned in an article published by Scientific American in 1970. It consists of a grid of cells which, based on a few mathematical rules, can live, die or multiply. Depending on the initial conditions, the cells form various patterns throughout the course of the game.
Each cell with one or no neighbors dies, as if by solitude.
Each cell with four or more neighbors dies, as if by overpopulation.
Each cell with two or three neighbors survives.
Each cell with three neighbors becomes populated.
Video’s about the Game of Life
Interesting articles about John Conway
Implemented by Edwin Martin <edwin@bitstorm.org>