Sawtooth 562
| Sawtooth 562 | |||||||||
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| Pattern type | Sawtooth | ||||||||
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| Number of cells | 415 | ||||||||
| Bounding box | 105 × 74 | ||||||||
| Expansion factor | 6 | ||||||||
| Discovered by | Dean Hickerson Tim Coe | ||||||||
| Year of discovery | 1992 | ||||||||
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Sawtooth 562 is an orthogonal sawtooth with expansion factor 6 that was found by Dean Hickerson and Tim Coe on August 14, 1992. Its population in generations t near 28(6n) is about t/5 if t is odd and about 3t/20 if t is even. However, its population in generation 14(6n) - 84 (n ≥ 2) is only 562. Even more specifically, the population in generation t = 28(6n) + 12 (n ≥ 1) is 3t/20 + 555, which drops to t/5 + 599 in the next generation.
It works by using a spark from a period-4, speed c/4 orthogonal spaceship, found by Tim Coe, to turn one lightweight spaceship into a loaf, which is then pulled back by subsequent pairs of lightweight spaceships (see tractor beam). When the loaf is pulled all the way back, it gets deleted and the cycle begins again.
The pattern
| (click above to open LifeViewer) RLE: here Plaintext: here |
Image gallery
The number of alive cells plotted versus the number of elapsed generations roughly forms an ever-increasing sawtooth graph.
External links
- Sawtooth 562 at Paul Callahan's Page of Conway's Life Miscellany