still life

• still-life

Calque of Dutch stilleven.

still life (plural still lifes or still lives)

1. (painting) A work of art depicting an arrangement of inanimate objects.
2. (cellular automata, usually countable) A pattern that does not change from one generation to the next.

   Hyponyms: beehive, block, boat, loaf, ship

   • 1992 May 5, Holocaust-->Travesty, “the Hodge Podge machine”, in comp.theory.cell-automata‎ (Usenet):

     I think you're talking about a configuration known as "eater," a still life in 6-8 cells. If the glider hits the right spot, the eater will form a bridge and destroy the glider while undergoing little change before reverting.

   • 1996 November 16, Paul Callahan, “Still-life glider reflector found”, in comp.theory.cell-automata‎ (Usenet):

     Thus, a natural question, apparently proposed very early, was whether there exists a still life (i.e. period 1 oscillator) that reflects a glider.

   • 2003 December 12, Tony Finch, “Implementing Conway's Life”, in comp.theory.cell-automata‎ (Usenet):

     I haven't tested yet, but I expect hlife to win by a very large margin since the puffer train has lots of still life and blinkers to make Gosper's algorithm look good, and hlife's low-level implementation is quite good at handling the more random parts.

• (work of art): nature morte