Block-laying switch engine

From LifeWiki

Block-laying switch engine
Pattern type	Puffer
Direction	Diagonal
Period	288
Speed	c/12
Number of cells	43
Bounding box	29×28
Discovered by	Charles Corderman
Year of discovery	Unknown
Glider synthesis Fewest gliders 5 Java link click here RLE blocklayingswitchengine_synth.rle
Pattern files Life 1.05 blocklayingswitchengine_105.lif Life 1.06 blocklayingswitchengine_106.lif Plaintext blocklayingswitchengine.cells RLE blocklayingswitchengine.rle

The block-laying switch engine (or block-making switch engine) is a puffer that was found by Charles Corderman. It consists of a switch engine reacting with blocks to create an infinite number of new blocks (eight new blocks every 288 generations).

It is the most common naturally-occurring pattern that exhibits infinite growth, and is one of only two patterns that exhibits infinite growth that has been known to occur naturally (the other being the glider-producing switch engine).

Because of its easy construction (see the predecessor below), it has appeared in some superlinear growth patterns including mosquito 1 and mosquito 2.^[1]

Image gallery

The blocks left behind by the block-laying switch engine

A simple predecessor of the block-laying switch engine RLE: here

References

1. ↑ Stephen Silver. "Mosquito 1". The Life Lexicon. Retrieved on June 1, 2009.

External links

• Single switch engine puffer trains at the Life Objects Catalog