Snark
| Snark | ||
| ||
| View static image | ||
| Pattern type | Stable reflector | |
|---|---|---|
| Number of cells | 49 | |
| Angle | 90° | |
| Repeat time | 43 | |
| Discovered by | Mike Playle | |
| Year of discovery | 2013 | |
The snark is a 90° stable glider reflector, made up of two eaters, a block and an unnamed 31-cell still life. It is currently the fastest and the smallest 90° stable glider reflector, both in terms of the population and the bounding box.
It has been the outcome of the challenge, set by Adam P. Goucher in 2010, to complement a pattern, found by Dietrich Leithner about 1998. The still life catalyst used in the snark was found with Bellman, a program for searching catalytic reactions, developed by Mike Playle.
Given its small recovery time, the snark made oscillators of previously unknown periods of 43 and 53 trivial, that was shown by Matthias Merzenich on the same day when it had been announced.