Loafer

Loafer (also the loafer) is a c/7 orthogonal spaceship found by Josh Ball on February 17, 2013.[1] Its name refers to its slow speed and loaf-pushing behaviour.

Loafer
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Pattern type Spaceship
Number of cells 20
Bounding box 9×9
Direction Orthogonal
Period 7
Mod 7
Speed c/7
Speed (unsimplified) c/7
Heat 14.6
Discovered by Josh Ball
Year of discovery 2013

It is the fifth smallest known spaceship in terms of cell count (after glider, lightweight spaceship, middleweight spaceship and heavyweight spaceship), excluding some nontrivial flotillae. Despite this, it did not occur naturally until April 1, 2020,[2][note 1] making it the first spaceship of a non-standard speed to occur in an asymmetric soup. A second soup was found by Rob Liston on June 2, 2020.[4]

The loafer ranked second place in the Pattern of the Year 2013 competition in a belated vote held in 2018 on the ConwayLife.com forums, behind the Snark.[5]

Synthesis

Adam P. Goucher found an 18-glider synthesis for this spaceship on the day of its discovery which Matthias Merzenich reduced to 8 gliders the following day.[6] Two loafer guns were built by Shannon Omick on February 19th of the same year, using these syntheses.[7]

Uses and reactions

Paul Tooke built a sawtooth that uses loafer's ability to turn a middleweight spaceship into a loaf.[8]

Mike Playle found a stable loafer-to-Herschel conduit, apparently by means of the same search program (or its earlier version), that gave the world the Snark a month and a half later.[9]

On 11 June 2016, Simon Ekström created a loafer-to-glider conduit, based on a loafer-to-pi found by Aidan F. Pierce.[10][11]

The loafer can be cleanly destroyed by an eater 1 positioned at the loafer's foot.

Loafer about to get eaten by an eater 1.
gollark: The door lock would then verify that the message was actually signed with the key, and the times are close enough.
gollark: The door lock or whatever would store the public key, the pocket computer the private key, and the pocket computer would constantly broadcast a message containing the current time, signed with its private key.
gollark: Just thinking about it, the most secure way might be a pocket computer sending sender-verified signals based on the current time.
gollark: Unless somebody is... using it off switchcraft?
gollark: No, claims are.

See also

Notes
  1. Coincidentally, this occurred exactly two years after Dave Greene posted a fake loafer-producing soup on April Fools' Day 2018.[3]

References
  1. Josh Ball (February 17, 2013). Re: c/7 orthogonal spaceships (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums
  2. Billabob (April 1, 2020). Re: Soup search results (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums
  3. Dave Greene (April 1, 2018). Re: I have constructed a lightspeed spaceship in B3/S23! (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums
  4. Lewis Patterson (June 3, 2020). Re: Soup search results (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums
  5. 77topaz (March 29, 2018). Re: Belated Pattern of the Year 2013 competition: Voting (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums
  6. Adam P. Goucher (March 10, 2013). "c/7 Orthogonal Spaceship". Retrieved on March 16, 2013.
  7. Shannon Omick (February 18, 2013). Re: c/7 orthogonal spaceships (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums
  8. Paul Tooke (February 22, 2013). Re: c/7 orthogonal spaceships (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums
  9. Mike Playle (March 9, 2013). Re: c/7 orthogonal spaceships (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums
  10. Aidan F. Pierce (18 February 2015). Re: The Hunting of the New Herschel Conduits (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums
  11. Simon Ekström (11 June 2016). Re: Thread For Requesting Help (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums
  • 20P7H1V0.1 at Heinrich Koenig's Game of Life Object Catalogs
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