This is a pretty fascinating pattern to watch once it settles. Does it have a name yet?
Some observations:
* The basis of stability seems to be horizontal and vertical alternating black/white lines.
* There are two obvious areas of activity: A region of 'chaos' and a region of 'order' (parallel lines).
* The parallel line region supports various gliders of various sizes. The smallest is a single pixel of change moving across a line, changing white to black or vise versa), the largest takes up 7 pixels at a time (in an area of about 7x12 it looks like). Interestingly, the larger one "moves" faster than the others. I think I see gliders of 1, 3, 5, and 7 pixel height. There may also be a mutation of the 7-pixel glider that causes it to go even faster (looks like it has an extended head compared to the other)
* The gliders interact with one another, either combining forces, neutralizing each other, or changing states to a glider of a different size (usually to a size smaller than the larger of the two)
* The gliders originate from the merger of the horizontal and vertical areas, starting (and ending) their life where the two regions collide
* When two gliders of the same size perfectly collide with one another, they completely neutralize. Any offset in size or orientation causes a smaller glider to spin away (likely representing the 'difference' in 'energy' between the two, whatever that means)
* There's also a 'blinker' that occurs when two alternating lines meet one another
The behavior is also interesting at a larger scale. The regions of contiguous horizontal or vertical lines begin very small, and slowly increase in size over time.
I found a CA rule with similar behavior when I was playing them many years ago, although in that case, it was solid black/white regions instead of horizontal/vertical parallel lines.
It's very cool. I also notice that there is an area of chaos at the edge of the world, where the lines are perpendicular to the map edge. This can cause new areas to emerge and take over. For example, my current Universe has 3 distinct areas, but a 4th has emerged in the last 5 minutes from the right border that has expanded to the left.
I feel like the difference between "made" and "discovered" depends on how you get there. If you're tinkering with cellular automata, and you notice a rule that makes something pretty, I'd say you "discovered" it.
If, on the other hand, you study cellular automata until you have a deep understanding of their behavior, and you use that knowledge to determine a rule that will produce a particular aesthetic, you "made" it.
So by that reasoning, the rule was discovered. The program that renders it in a browser was made.
"The time-span in which the MCL process and MCL algorithm came to me was no more than five minutes. It was something that happened to me, not something wrought by me. It feels like a nice discovery, a phenomenon of nature."
I'm currently building a 2D/3D simulation engine as part of my PhD - it's uncanny how incredibly simple physical principles generated output that has the "look 'n feel" of organic phenomena.
It returns the value of a neighbor given an index, and an x and y delta value. So rel(20, -1, 0) would return the neighbor to the left (x=-1, y=0) of the 20th cell.
Looks to me like a constantly evolving maze. A shifting maze? Anyone watch the movie Cube (Cube is a 1997 Canadian science fiction psychological horror film, directed and co-written by Vincenzo Natali)?
edit: i'd just add that even though it's only a joke, a comment regarding (even if critical of) the language used to write the code is absolutely on topic.
