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.

B-heptomino and other conduits

There are other conduits that move objects other than the Herschel, objects like the B-heptomino, R-pentomino, or the century. These conduits are no less useful than Herschel conduits, and some Herschel conduit are made up of 2 or more different conduit transforming the signal.

As of February 2023, there are 15 objects that are "officially" recognized as conduit signals. Those objects are:

• the R-pentomino (abbreviated as R)
• the B-heptomino (abbreviated as B)
• the Herschel (abbreviated as H)
• the century (abbreviated as C)
• the dove (abbreviated as D)
• the pi-heptomino (abbreviated as P)
• the queen bee (abbreviated as Q)
• the wing (abbreviated as W)
• the I-heptomino (abbreviated as I)
• the two-glider octomino (abbreviated as O)
• the blonk-tie (abbreviated as J)
• the U-turner (abbreviated as U)
• the glider (abbreviated as G)
• the lightweight spaceship (abbreviated as Lw)
• the middleweight spaceship (abbreviated as Mw)

There are also some objects that have some conduits which input or output it but are not considered to be "official" conduit signals, like the R-turner, the heavyweight spaceship, or "e9jp".

The names of conduits that input and/or output an object other than a Herschel are derived from 3 things: the input and output object, the orientation of the output object relative to the input, and the amount of time it takes for the output to reach its canonical form. More specifically, the name is structured as follows:

[abbreviation of the input object] [output orientation] [amount of time it takes for the output to reach its canonical form] [abbreviation of the output object]

Creating a useful conduit

To make it more likely that a new elementary conduit will be useful, the following should be true:

• The output should have enough clearance that it doesn't hit a catalyst before it can be perturbed.
• The input should have enough clearance that an object can get there. Some active objects, 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 or a potentially useful HF eater that works in all eight orientations). 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)