This week's featured article
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| An eater is any still life that has the ability to interact with certain patterns without suffering any permanent damage. The term may also sometimes specifically refer to eater 1, a very common and well-known eater. The block was the first known eater, being found to be capable of eating beehives from a queen bee, allowing the construction of the queen bee shuttle. The animation to the right shows an eater 5 feasting on an incoming stream of gliders.
Eaters are extremely important, as they help stabilize and control debris created by complex reactions, allowing for the manipulation of the useful parts of those reactions. Stable reflectors in particular heavily rely on a variety of eaters to work.
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In the news
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Pattern collection
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| The LifeWiki contains one of the most comprehensive catalogues of patterns available on the internet. Within it you will find:
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Did you know...
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- ... that a half blockade can be struck by a single glider to produce a three-block constellation that becomes its mirror image when hit by another glider, while also releasing another glider in the same direction?
- ... that a series of increasingly larger greyships, starting with Canada Grey, can all be constructed incrementally by colliding gliders with a gradually accreting still life target?
- ... that oblique puffers and rakes based on elementary spaceships were unknown in Conway's Life until Dylan Chen and Adam P. Goucher constructed combinations of sprayer knightships in May 2021?
- ... that a configuration of two ponds and two blocks recovers back to its original position when sparked in a certain way, allowing for the creation of some period multipliers?
- ... that the third-smallest unique-period gun (at the time) was discovered just six hours after the second-smallest unique-period gun, despite the two being completely unrelated?
- ... that despite 22P36 having been known since 1995, one half of it was not generalized to a versatile traffic stop catalyst until 26 years later?
- ... that Merzenich's p64 and 32P21 are both hassling two beehives and two R-pentominoes, and 56P27 hassles four of each?
- ... that a 56-cell pattern based on the p129 R-pentomino hassler is the smallest known periodic pattern by population that is isotropically endemic to Conway's Life?
- ... that the single seldom-used extra transition of Pedestrian Life (B38/S23) from Life leads to several non-pedestrian linear growth patterns, including a reflectorless rotating glider gun, a set of (5,2)c/190 technology and a messy oblique p1884 puffer?
- ... that there are two unrelated three-stage composite Herschel conduits with systematic label L156 and repeat time 62 ticks (HLx69R+RF28B+BFx59H and HL75P+PF35W+WFx46H)?
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