methuselah

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See also: Methuselah

English

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Noun

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methuselah (plural methuselahs or methuselae)

  1. A large wine bottle with the capacity of about 6 liters, equivalent to 8 standard bottles.
  2. (cellular automata) A small pattern that takes many generations to stabilize.
    Hyponyms: B-heptomino, Herschel, pi-heptomino, R-pentomino, switch engine
    • 1996 December 16, Paul Callahan, “Need help in finding topic for research project”, in comp.theory.cell-automata[1] (Usenet):
      The first known methuselah was the r pentomino, but even longer lasting ones have been found by enumerating and testing small patterns. The following, called "rabbits," takes over 10000 generations to stabilize.
    • 2003 February 24, Michael Hedera, “Methuselahs in Conway's Life”, in comp.theory.cell-automata[2] (Usenet):
      Is there somewhere a list of n-cell methuselah patterns in Conway's Life? (assuming some reasonable limits on the bounding box)
    • 2008 June 29, Andrzej Megier, “Game of life methuselah?”, in comp.theory.cell-automata[3] (Usenet):
      The pattern below seems to take about 30000 generations to stabilize. The initial population is 20. Is this methuselah a known one?