methuselah

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?