Conduit

A conduit is an arrangement of still lifes and/or oscillators that move an active object to another location without themselves being permanently damaged. The object may be transformed into a different active object in the process, but no permanent debris may be left behind. Alternatively, gliders or other spaceships may be emitted; they will either abandon the site of their creation, or can be absorbed by eaters. Probably the most important conduit is conduit 1, in which a B-heptomino is transformed into a Herschel in 59 generations.

Herschel conduits

Main article: Herschel conduit

The most prolific stable conduits are those which rotate, reflect or translate a Herschel in a certain number of generations. Oscillators of all periods >= 58 can be built using these elementary conduits. All except the smallest stable reflectors use Herschel conduits, some of the counter-examples being the Snark, rectifier, and boojum reflector.

Creating a useful conduit

For an elementary conduit to be useful, the following must be true:

• The output must have enough clearance that it doesn't hit a catalyst before it can be perturbed.
• The input must have enough clearance that an object can get there. Some regions, like B-heptominoes, usually come from certain directions, so make sure that direction isn't blocked.
• The input region is common enough. For example, there are a lot more U-turner input conduits than output conduits, but as more U-turner output conduits get found, the input conduits become more useful.
• The input and output regions expand enough. Honey farms don't expand much and don't have that much use in conduits. Similarly, lumps of muck may appear useful, but they expand symmetrically from the origin rather than moving in one direction and aren't used in conduits much.

See also

• Conduits (category)

External links

• Conduit at the Life Lexicon
• Buckingham on B-heptominos in oscillators at Paul Callahan's Page of Conway's Life Miscellany
• Buckingham discussing stable reflectors and Herschel tracks at Paul Callahan's Page of Conway's Life Miscellany
• Stephen Silver on stable reflectors at Paul Callahan's Page of Conway's Life Miscellany
• [1] Brief summary of stable technology
• The Hunting of the New Herschel Conduits (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums (contains links to other useful conduit-related forum threads)