Hacksaw
Hacksaw is an orthogonal sawtooth with expansion factor equal to 9 that was found by Dean Hickerson on August 7, 1992. The population in generation t = 385(9n) - 189 (n ≥ 1) is t/4 + 1079, but the population in generation 1155(9n - 179) (n ≥ 0) is only 977.
Hacksaw | |||||||
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Pattern type | Sawtooth | ||||||
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Number of cells | 687 | ||||||
Bounding box | 199×102 | ||||||
Expansion factor | 9 | ||||||
Discovered by | Dean Hickerson | ||||||
Year of discovery | 1992 | ||||||
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The pattern consists of two parts, a stationary shotgun and a set of puffers moving east. The shotgun produces, and usually destroys, a salvo consisting of a middleweight spaceship and two lightweight spaceships. The moving part consists of a blinker puffer 1 and two period 24 glider puffers whose output gliders destroy each other (with help from an accompanying middleweight spaceship). In generation 385(9n - 189) (n ≥ 1) (and 228 for n = 0), a salvo hits the back end of the row of blinkers, causing it to form a blinker fuse that decays at 2c/3. When the row is completely gone, a new row starts to form and a spark is produced. The spark is turned into a glider by an accompanying heavyweight spaceship; the glider is turned into a westward lightweight spaceship in generation 1155(9n - 127) (n ≥ 0) by interacting with the glider puffers. The 3-glider synthesis of the lightweight spaceship is due to David Buckingham. When the lightweight spaceship hits the shotgun in generation 2310(9n - 184) (n ≥ 0), another salvo is released, starting the cycle again.
The idea for this sawtooth pattern was suggested by Bill Gosper.
Image gallery
- The number of alive cells plotted versus the number of elapsed generations roughly forms an ever-increasing sawtooth graph.
Videos
See also
External links
- Hacksaw at Dean Hickerson's webpage