methuselah

plural methuselahs · plural methuselae

1. A large wine bottle with the capacity of about 6 liters, equivalent to 8 standard bottles.

   Synonyms: Imperial

2. cellular automataA small pattern that takes many generations to stabilize.

   Is there somewhere a list of n-cell methuselah patterns in Conway's Life? (assuming some reasonable limits on the bounding box)

   2003 February 24, Michael Hedera, “Methuselahs in Conway's Life”, in comp.theory.cell-automata (Usenet)

   2 more examples

   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.

   1996 December 16, Paul Callahan, “Need help in finding topic for research project”, in comp.theory.cell-automata (Usenet)

   The pattern below seems to take about 30000 generations to stabilize. The initial population is 20. Is this methuselah a known one?

   2008 June 29, Andrzej Megier, “Game of life methuselah?”, in comp.theory.cell-automata (Usenet)

1. The oldest person whose age is recorded in the Hebrew Bible, having reportedly lived 969 years.

   And Methuselah lived an hundred eighty and seven years, and begat Lamech: And Methuselah lived after he begat Lamech seven hundred eighty and two years, and begat sons and daughters:

   1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Genesis 5:25-26

2. astronomyA planet in the PSR B1620-26 star system, Messier 4 globular cluster, Milky Way Galaxy, Scorpius constellation; a circumbinary planet, officially named PSR B1620-26 b, orbiting a pulsar (“PSR B1620-26 A”) and white dwarf (“WD B1620-26 B”).

   Synonyms: Planet Methuselah, Methuselah Planet, Genesis, Planet Genesis, Genesis Planet

plural Methuselahs

1. broadlyAny person or thing that has lived to a very old age.
2. alternativeAlternative spelling of methuselah (“large wine bottle”).