p5 quinti-Snark
| p5 quinti-Snark | |||||||||
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| Pattern type | Reflector Oscillator | ||||||||
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| Number of cells | 87 | ||||||||
| Bounding box | 22 × 39 | ||||||||
| Angle | 180° | ||||||||
| Period | 5 | ||||||||
| Heat | Unknown | ||||||||
| Period multiplier | 5× | ||||||||
| Colour | Colour-changing | ||||||||
| Discovered by | Tanner Jacobi | ||||||||
| Year of discovery | 2018 | ||||||||
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p5 quinti-Snark is a period-quintupling 180-degree glider reflector discovered by Tanner Jacobi on October 30, 2018.[1] It consists of a heavyweight volcano, two independent eater 1s, an eater1-with-beehive constellation as in RNE-19T84, and another bait that may be a block, beehive, honeybit, depending on the number of inputs. Removing the leftmost eater 1 leaves another beehive that makes the device a 6× period multiplier, but this can otherwise be achieved by chaining a semi-Snark to a tremi-Snark or using filters.
Even though it contains a period-5 oscillator, it can quintuple the period of glider streams of any (sufficiently large) period; the oscillator is only involved in processing every fifth glider. This makes the reflector more versatile than quinti-Snarks of other periods. The lowest "safe" period of an uninterrupted periodic input glider stream is 55, due to the glider-emitting block → HF predecessor stage.
The heavyweight volcano is effectively obsolete in most quinti-snark situations today (even the stable form itself is shorter), as different choices of period-5 sparker are more useful for fitting this into different geometries, as exemplified by various period-5N guns in Catagolue's glider gun collection (direct link). The following two are the most optimal alternative p5 sparkers, though note that for multiples of 20 various p4 sparkers perform better for providing horizontal lane clearance.
| An alternative p5 sparker, most useful for reducing height. This outdoes the stable quinti-snark by 6 cells (matching pentadecathlon for clearance) and shifts the horizontal bounding box to be one less in one direction and one more in the other. (click above to open LifeViewer) RLE: here Plaintext: here Catagolue: here |
| Another alternative p5 sparker which is the smallest known, and the one with the least side clearance, found by Elijah Ken. This version does stick backwards two more rows, though, so is only useful if at least two more rows are provided or if the flatter p5 above doesn't fit. (click above to open LifeViewer) Catagolue: here |
References
- ↑ Tanner Jacobi (October 30, 2018). Re: Execution of Old Guns by Variable-Speed Firing Squad (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums
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