Eater 1 reaction
The Eater 1 reaction is a reaction that eats various patterns with a 2-cell or 3-cell leading edge (or occasionally more), most notably gliders.
| Three eater 1 catalyses using different still lifes, which are all equivalent. (click above to open LifeViewer) |
In most cases, an eater 2 performs the same function as an eater 1, but there are a decent number of catalyses that only work with an eater 2, and a few that only work with an eater 1, such as eating a blinker:
| Eating a blinker works with an eater 1 but not an eater 2. (click above to open LifeViewer) |
For an eater 1 to work, it is essential that the cells marked in yellow and red below are off.
| The yellow cell is on, so it fails. The red cell is off, so it succeeds. (click above to open LifeViewer) |
Unusual uses of eater 1
| The middleweight emulators act as eater 1s in this p32 honey farm hassler. (click above to open LifeViewer) RLE: here Plaintext: here |
| As shown in the 101 page, it has a contrived catalysis. Replacing the oscillator with a fishhook and placing a domino in generation 3 reveals that it functions identically. (click above to open LifeViewer) |
Frequency
According to Catagolue, as of May 2, 2024, the vast majority of 22P36 eater 1s, about 87%, are fishhooks. There are about 1/10 as many integrals as fishhooks, and 1/100 as many block on docks (in both cis- and trans- form relative to the pentadecathlon), moose antlers, and fourteeners, with others being even rarer.
The ratio is slightly different for asymmetric pentadecathlon oscillators. The fishhook:integral ratio is only 4.6:1. Next is pentadecathlon on cis-boat up on dock, but that is not "natural" frequency as it forms from a forming pentadecathlon hitting a beehive and block rather than the cis-boat up on dock having to form by itself. Other eater 1s have a small sample size, but elevener and block on dock (trans relative to the pentadecathlon) both imply a 70:1 ratio to the fishhook, more common than the 22P36 data.