Talk:Langton's ant

Question

 *  There is a simple extension to Langton's ant where instead of just two colours, more colours are used. There is also a simple name giving scheme for such ants where the letters 'L' and 'R' are used to indicate whether a left or right turn should be taken. Langton's ant would get the name 'RL' in this name giving scheme.


 * Some of these extended Langton's ants produce patterns that become symmetric over and over again. One of the simplest examples is the ant RLLR

I don't understand this naming scheme. The ant RLLR uses four colors? Does it modify the colors in a cyclic fashion? AxelBoldt 22:38 Jan 16, 2003 (UTC)


 * Exactly. --FvdP 22:43 Jan 16, 2003 (UTC)

I have experimented with various rules of Langton's ants, and they tend to fall into two categories. One category wanders seemingly chaotically at first, then builds a pathway, like that shown in the article's picture. The other, which I call "fortifiers", makes a symmetrical rectangular pattern and keeps on expanding it outward, one layer at a time. There doesn't seem to be any other category. J I P | Talk 17:57, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Not sure whether there is still any interest in this nearly 2 decades later, but there are many Youtube videos showing quite elaborate multi-colour extensions. Quite complex patterns emerge. This one is the best I have found: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X-gtr4pEBU&t=304s — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:8003:E422:3C01:1108:FBEB:A305:8792 (talk) 08:24, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

Question
Has anyone looked at what would happen if multiple Langton's ants were to share a plane? -- The Anome 14:26, 15 May 2004 (UTC)


 * Sure. I've seen pages on the web on this subject. But since it's not in line with my interests about ants, I remembered no reference. --FvdP 21:56, 17 May 2004 (UTC)

Page update

 * Chris Langton implemented a version with multiple ants which exhibits complex emergent interactions between pairs, triples, and higher order-collections of ants. I've added text about this and a link to a YouTube video demonstrating the multiple ants implementation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.119.75.230 (talk) 21:27, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

sex-positive feminism?
Has there been a mistake made. emmm, how is sex-positive feminism representative of Langston's ant? Tim, Flagstaff, AZ

broken link
the coldstorageonline external link is broken. 156.56.223.53 (talk) 22:36, 4 December 2007 (UTC) yes and i believe that most other program link are broken as well

In popular culture
Should this have an In Popular Culture section? I have played several games that contain Langton's ant, most notably Powder Game. Or has Wikipedia been trying to cut down on these since the whole Wood thing? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.3.246.103 (talk) 22:15, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

External links modified
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Information about highway on one shown design
The RLR ant does not produce a highway until at least 202.530 steps. 14bauhr (talk) 16:56, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Ant "cancer"
This is all OR, but I have coded numerous of these cellular automata, and I have found it very educational to introduce rare (say 1:100,000 iterations, often even more rare than that) "errors" in the code, where a semi-arbitary different rule applies for only that one step. As in real life, I have found that this can produce utterly profound changes in the long term behaviour. Hence my name of "cancer". "Mutation" could be another possible name. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:8003:E422:3C01:2D1C:818D:3EFC:15A5 (talk) 11:07, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

An extension to the ant's "domain"
Ant as he is defined is fairly boring, in that once he finds/makes the highway he then keeps going in a straight line. Much more interesting in to put him into non-homogenous media. I have found that randomly making "a few" cells in every thousand "colour2" rather than the background, makes for much much more interesting behaviour. I can elaborate on this and put in a pic if wanted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:8003:E422:3C01:1108:FBEB:A305:8792 (talk) 08:22, 8 February 2022 (UTC)