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 (with some known exceptions, like composite H-to-Gs). 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)