This week's featured article
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The kickback reaction is a collision of two gliders resulting in a single glider travelling in the opposite direction to one of the original gliders. This is important in the proof of the existence of a universal constructor, Bill Gosper's total aperiodic, and many other constructions.
Besides the 90-degree collision shown here, one other two-glider collision with gliders meeting at 180 degrees also produces a clean output glider, and may also be called a "kickback reaction".
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In the news
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Did you know...
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- ... that, while it is impossible to build a true stable Heisenburp device that detects a passing glider without even temporarily affecting it, there are several known stable pseudo-Heisenburp devices?
- ... that the name of the Bandersnatch, a color-changing lane-shifter device discovered in 2020, is derived from a Lewis Carroll poem that also supplied names for the Snark, the boojum reflector, the Jubjub reflector and the Bellman and Barrister search utilities?
- ... that the first rake that produces spaceships travelling in the same direction but slower was found in 2003, using a c/2 rake to produce 2c/5 spaceships?
- ... that it is possible for a single Life object to simulate the evolution of an arbitrary number of other Life objects at the same time (although at increasingly slower speeds)?
- ... that the Fast Forward Force Field reaction can transport an LWSS 11 spaces in 6 generations, creating the illusion of super-light-speed travel?
- ... that there are line puffers with a row of live cells at the back, which create very dirty exhaust whose period apparently (this is not proven) grows exponentially as the length of the row is increased?
- ... that there is an infinite series of period 3 oscillators that are polyominoes in one phase, starting with the cross?
- ... that there are spaceships without any sparks which can nevertheless perturb objects due to their ability to repair some damage to themselves?
- ... that the R-pentomino creates a queen bee in generation 774, which lasts 17 generations before being destroyed?
- ... that a relay glider bouncing back and forth between two pentadecathlons was one of the earliest constructive proofs that oscillators can have arbitrarily high periods?
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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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