Sawtooth: Difference between revisions
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==See also== | ==See also== | ||
*[[Caber tosser]] | |||
*[[:Category:Sawtooths|List of sawtooths]] | *[[:Category:Sawtooths|List of sawtooths]] | ||
==External links== | ==External links== | ||
*[http://www.argentum.freeserve.co.uk/lex_s.htm#sawtooth Sawtooth] at the Life Lexicon | *[http://www.argentum.freeserve.co.uk/lex_s.htm#sawtooth Sawtooth] at the Life Lexicon | ||
Revision as of 14:48, 26 March 2009
A sawtooth is a finite pattern whose population grows without bound but does not tend to infinity. In other words, it is a pattern with population that reaches new heights infinitely often, but also infinitely often drops below some fixed value. Their name comes from the fact that their plot of population versus generation number looks roughly like an ever-increasing sawtooth graph.
The first sawtooth was constructed by Dean Hickerson in April 1991 by using a loaf tractor beam. The least infinitely repeating population of any known sawtooth is 262, attained by sawtooth 262.
Expansion factor
The expansion factor of a sawtooth is the limit of the ratio of successive heights (or equivalently, widths) of the "teeth" in plots of population versus generation number. Some sawtooths do not have an expansion factor under its standard definition because they have growth that is not exactly exponentially-spaced (see parabolic sawtooth and sawtooth 1163).
See also
External links
- Sawtooth at the Life Lexicon