With transition S3-a, a block dies instantly. Other than that the rule exhibits larger varieties of still lifes compared with the classic Game of Life.
There are three characteristic common oscillators, of period 240, 28 and 44 respectively. They are all very sparky and thus play an important role in technologies.
x = 6, y = 5, rule = B3-jknr4ity5ijk6i8/S23-a4city6c7c
bob2o$6o$b2o$2b3o$3bo!
#C [[ THUMBSIZE 2 THEME 6 GRID GRIDMAJOR 0 SUPPRESS THUMBLAUNCH ]]
#C [[ GPS 20 AUTOSTART ZOOM 8 X 9 Y -5 ]]
Cloverleaf, a period-240 oscillator (Catagolue: here)
The period-240 oscillator cloverleaf is the most common oscillator and the second most common object arising from soups, due to the fact that an R-pentomino (or its 2-generation descendant B-heptomino) is a naturalpredecessor of it. It is also a reflectorless rotating oscillator with ⌘-shaped motion, albeit of loopability 1. It was this oscillator, found in other rules[1], that led to the discovery of Glimmering Garden.
The period-28 oscillator Julia is the third most common oscillator.
The period-44 oscillator butterfly is the fourth most common oscillator. There is a common non-trivial dimer of it as well.
With the discovery of R-pentomino conduits (see below), oscillators of period 37 or above can be constructed. At the time of writing, the periods for which no oscillator is known are 10, 11, 15, 16, 19~25, 27, 29, 31~33, 35.
A 3-engine 14c/92d spaceship (click above to open LifeViewer)
Naturally-occuring spaceships include the c/2 orthogonal T-ship, a c/4 orthogonal and a 3c/20 fireship-like orthogonal spaceship, though the latter only in higher symmetrys. Moreover, some non-exhaustive searches for c/2 and 2c/4 components have been carried out with Rust Life Search.
The bullet heptomino is the smallest, fastest spaceship as well as the most common object arising from random soups. Its other phase is a t-tetromino plus one dot spark at the back, hence the name T-ship. Its significance for Glimmering Garden is to the same extent as the glider for Game of Life.
There are 29 distinct two T-ship collisions, 19 of which creates nothing, 6 creates a single T-ship (include 4 fly-by deletions), one creates two T-ships and another one creates two blinkers. The remaining two is messy. In-depth investigation on syntheses is yet to be done.
The most common linear growth pattern is a 32c/68 orthogonal double T-ship backrake, as shown on the right. It is the basis of many other linear growths, where the outputs are filtered by oscillators or crashed into other objects.
The third most common one is a 14c/92 diagonal puffer (Catagolue: here) arising from a double interaction between a cloverleaf and a Julia, making the outputs solely Julias.
A large amount of T-ship guns are based on cloverleaf, Julia and butterfly. The smallest and fastest known gun is a true-period p13 T-ship gun on the left. With the discovery of stable T-ship duplicators, T-ship guns with periods 51 or above can be constructed.
Giving off similar century-like sparks, the oscillators cloverleaf, Julia and butterfly are excellent for signal circuits. For Julia, T-ship 90-degree reflector, 180-degree reflector, Heisenburp, demultiplexer and AND gate have been found.
Stable technologies are also of interest, most of which relies on tub, the smallest still life that functions as a versatile rock. The period-13 gun above is an example. The tub can also catalyse the evolution of R-pentomino/B-heptomino in various manners, which enables the construction of period-37 (or above) R-pentomino loop.
Besides the B-heptomino, T-ship is another vital signal carrier. After the discovery of a baitboat reaction with recovery time 51, Luka Okanishi constructed a stable T-ship duplicator giving 0-degree and 90-degree outputs. Further elaboration have resulted in Boolean logic AND, OR, XOR, ANDNOT gates, and eventually, a stable Rule 110unit cell proving the rule Turing-complete.
