Snake
Snake | |||||||||||
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Pattern type | Strict still life | ||||||||||
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Number of cells | 6 | ||||||||||
Bounding box | 4×2 | ||||||||||
Frequency class | 13.9 | ||||||||||
Discovered by | JHC group | ||||||||||
Year of discovery | 1970 | ||||||||||
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Snake is a 6-bit still life. It was discovered by the JHC group in 1970.[1]
Use as a rock
The snake can act as a rock. An example is shown below in Conduit 1.
Conduit 1, showing the snake as a rock catalyst (click above to open LifeViewer) RLE: here Plaintext: here |
Use as an induction coil
A snake is the cheapest way in both population and bounding box to stabilize a line of three cells, such as in cauldron, and the cheapest in bounding box but not population for a line of five, such as in the rectifier. Snakes are also the most efficient way to stabilize certain non-flat regions such as those in 55P10 and 28P7.2, although aircraft carriers also work for this purpose.
Commonness
Snake is the twenty-first most common still life in Achim Flammenkamp's census, being less common than boat-tie but slightly more common than big S.[2] It is also the twenty-eighth most common object on Adam P. Goucher's Catagolue. It is the rarest of the five 6-bit still lifes.[3]
The snake is about twice as common in C2_4 (the symmetry it has) compared to asymmetric soups.
Glider synthesis
All strict still lifes with a population of 20 or fewer cells, as well as all oscillators and spaceships with 16 or fewer cells, are known to be glider-constructible. A glider synthesis of this object can be found in the infobox to the right.
On February 20, 2022, a method was found to construct pseudo still lifes consisting of an arbitrarily large stack of snakes.[4] These objects were previously notoriously difficult to synthesize – xs18_bd0db0bd, consisting of a stack of three snakes, formerly cost 67 gliders to construct, making it by far the most expensive pseudo still life with 18 cells.[5]
Extensibility
Snake can be infinitely extended, as illustrated by the following:
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See also
- Aircraft carrier
- Snake siamese snake
- Snake bridge snake
- Silver's p5, period 5 oscillator
- Rattlesnake, period 11 oscillator
References
- ↑ Dean Hickerson's oscillator stamp collection. Retrieved on June 18, 2009.
- ↑ Achim Flammenkamp (September 7, 2004). "Most seen natural occurring ash objects in Game of Life". Retrieved on January 15, 2009.
- ↑ Adam P. Goucher. "Statistics". Catagolue. Retrieved on June 24, 2016.
- ↑ iNoMed (February 20, 2022). Re: Still Life Synthesis Thread (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums
- ↑ Adam P. Goucher. "Census". Catagolue. Retrieved on February 15, 2022.
External links
- Snake at the Life Lexicon
- The 5 six-bit still-lifes at Mark D. Niemiec's Life Page
- Patterns
- Patterns with Catagolue frequency class 13
- Natural periodic objects
- Periodic objects with minimum population 6
- Patterns with 6 cells
- Patterns found by JHC group
- Patterns found in 1970
- Patterns that can be constructed with 4 gliders
- Still lifes
- Strict still lifes
- Strict still lifes with 6 cells
- Patterns with 180-degree rotation symmetry
- Diagonal line stabilisations