Blocker
| Blocker | |||||||||
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| Pattern type | Oscillator | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of cells | 15 | ||||||||
| Bounding box | 10 × 6 | ||||||||
| Frequency class | 27.2 | ||||||||
| Period | 8 (mod: 4) | ||||||||
| Heat | 9 | ||||||||
| Volatility | 0.89 | 0.89 | ||||||||
| Kinetic symmetry | n.k | ||||||||
| Discovered by | Robert Wainwright | ||||||||
| Year of discovery | Unknown | ||||||||
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Blocker is a period-8 oscillator found by Robert Wainwright.[1] It consists of two blocks hassling an unnamed object which is a dying spark. It reappears halfway through its cycle rotated 180°.
Blockers can also be infinitely connected by "sharing" blocks, as long as adjacent reactions are no more than one phase apart. They can also be connected with Coe's p8, which uses blocks as catalysts in a similar manner.
| Blockers sharing blocks with a Coe's p8 (click above to open LifeViewer) RLE: here Plaintext: here |
Applications
Blocker is a versatile corner dot sparker employed in many situations, for example two pre-L hasslers, p40 and p56 B-heptomino shuttle, and two blockers hassling R-pentomino.
As a filter, a blocker can double the period of a glider stream that is a multiple of 4 but not 8 by deleting every second glider.
Commonness
- Main article: List of common oscillators
Blocker is about the sixteenth most common naturally-occurring oscillator in Achim Flammenkamp's census, being less common than mazing but more common than jam.[2] On Catagolue, it is the second most common period 8 oscillator, being less common than the figure eight but more common than Coe's p8.[3]
The first natural blocker stator variant, blocker on cap, occurred in September 2015.[4]
Glider synthesis
In January 2015, Bob Shemyakin found a two-stage 5-glider synthesis of a blocker.[5] Another two-directional 5-glider recipe was used in a larger synthesis in 2022.[6]
See also
References
- ↑ Dean Hickerson's oscillator stamp collection. Retrieved on March 14, 2020.
- ↑ Achim Flammenkamp (September 7, 2004). "Most seen natural occurring ash objects in Game of Life". Retrieved on January 15, 2009.
- ↑ Adam P. Goucher. "Statistics". Catagolue. Retrieved on October 27, 2018.
- ↑ Billabob (September 9, 2015). Re: Soup search results (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums
- ↑ Bob Shemyakin (January 7, 2015). Re: 4 glider syntheses (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums
- ↑ Ian07 (February 21, 2022). Re: Synthesising Oscillators (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums
External links
- Blocker at the Life Lexicon
- Blocker at Adam P. Goucher's Catagolue
- The 1 fifteen-bit period 8 oscillator at Mark D. Niemiec's Life Page (download pattern file: 15/15br.rle)
- 15P8.1 at Heinrich Koenig's Game of Life Object Catalogs
- Patterns
- Patterns with Catagolue frequency class 27
- Natural periodic objects
- Oscillators with 15 cells
- Periodic objects with minimum population 15
- Patterns with 15 cells
- Patterns found by Robert Wainwright
- Patterns that can be constructed with 5 gliders
- Oscillators
- Oscillators with period 8
- Oscillators with mod 4
- Oscillators with heat 9
- Oscillators with volatility 0.89
- Oscillators with strict volatility 0.89
- Oscillators with n.k symmetry
- Sparkers
- Sparkers with period 8
- Dot sparkers
- Strong sparkers