Herschel stopper
A Herschel stopper is a method of cleanly suppressing a Herschel signal with an asynchronous boat-bit, discovered by Dean Hickerson in November 1996. In the infobox pattern, a ghost Herschel marks the location of output signal if the boat-bit is not present. The first Herschel travels through the conduit unaffected, but after the glider produces a boat-bit, the next Herschel collides with the boat and the two are mutually annihilated without affecting any of the nearby catalysts. Other boat-bit locations that allow for clean suppression of a Herschel are also known.
| Herschel stopper | |||||||||
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| Pattern type | Conduit | ||||||||
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| Conduit type | Stable | ||||||||
| Input | glider | ||||||||
| Output | boat | ||||||||
| Number of cells | 6 | ||||||||
| Bounding box | 2×4 | ||||||||
| Discovered by | Dean Hickerson | ||||||||
| Year of discovery | 1996 | ||||||||
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The term "Herschel stopper" is also occasionally used to refer to any mechanism that cleanly suppresses a Herschel. These are usually stable conduits that allow the Herschel's first natural glider to escape, so they are more commonly classified as converters. See SW-2.