First natural block
The first natural block (abbreviated to FNB) is the first block released by a Herschel at generation 37.
Removal
Many Herschel conduits use an eater 1 to remove the first natural block, which may be placed in one of two possible locations. In F117, F131, Fx153, Fx176, fast Fx119, L112, HL75P and NW31, the interaction between the eater 1 and block predecessor starts at generation 33 and takes only two ticks; the detached Herschel descendant is effectively not perturbed. In F171, Fx77, L156, HRx65R, and periodic Lx65, the eater 1 catalysis starts at generation 30 instead, having a greater impact on the evolution so that the second natural glider will not appear later. Distinction between two possibilities can be significant, for instance, when choosing a variant of Bx222 or a compact Fx77.
| HR44B (left, with eater 1 as in F117) and HR48B (right, with eater 1 as in Fx77), found by Martin Grant in 2019.[1] Position of the other catalyst is the same relative to input. (click above to open LifeViewer) RLE: here Plaintext: here |
Dependent conduits prevent the input from releasing first natural glider, and so first natural block will not come into being. Besides them, conduits that remove the first natural block in evolution include F116, primitive Fx119, Fx158, HLx111R (related to HF110B and HF132B), R126[note 1], R190, Rx202, B60 and SW-2. The stable R64 functions well with or without an eater 1 as in F117, but its presence lowers the repeat time. Bx125, Bx222 and the primitive periodic Lx73 relies on the first natural glider from output to clear the first natural block from input.
See also
Notes
- ↑ However, R126 has an eater 1 one cell west and two cells north compared with that in F117.
References
- ↑ Martin Grant (March 15, 2019). Re: The Hunting of the Elementary Conduits (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums