This article is a stub. You can help LifeWiki by expanding it.
The viewer below is too wide. If there is a way to show the same pattern or idea in a narrower smaller viewer, that would be preferable. If that is not feasible, one existing alternative is to show and explain the pattern or idea in a forum post, and link to that post from the page.
A pattern that transmits a signal diagonally at the speed of light was found by Jason Summers in 1999. It is composed of 88 gliders and 2 LWSSs.[2] The mechanism is shown below with and without an input signal. If the input glider is present, it travels through the mechanism at the speed of light. However, because the pattern takes a while to get started and to settle down at the end, the effective speed is less, approximately 150 cells in 193 ticks, still much faster than the c/4 diagonal spaceship speed limit. Regardless of the presence or absence of an input glider, the mechanism soon dies, thus it is a single-use mechanism. The limitation with using this in a complete circuit is that generating gliders that are so closely spaced with current technology would require an immense pattern.[3]
SW input glider emerges to the NE. The 3 gliders furthest SW and the 2 LWSSs (from N and E) are for cleanup. (click above to open LifeViewer) RLE:herePlaintext:here
The 3 SW gliders are for cleanup. The input glider is shown in red.
