Period multiplier
Period multiplier is a term commonly used for a pulse divider, because dividing the number of signals in a regular stream by N necessarily multiplies the period by N. The term "period multiplier" can be somewhat misleading in this context, because most such circuits can accept input streams that are not strictly periodic.
For Herschel signals and glider guns, a number of small period doubler, tripler, and quadrupler mechanisms are known. For example, the first one of the following conduits produces one output glider after accepting four input B-heptominoes, or four Herschels if a conduit such as F117 is prepended that includes the same BFx59H converter. For a period-doubling variant of that conduit, see L156.
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Additional examples for glider streams are semi-Snark, tremi-Snark and quadri-Snark. As of June 2020 no stable period-multiplying elementary conduits are known for a multiplication factor of five or higher, though it is easy to construct composite ones.
Reactions have also been found to double or triple the output period of some rakes in a relatively small space, enabling an exponential increase in period for a linear increase in size.[citation needed]
External links
- Period multiplier at the Life Lexicon
- I'm looking for period multiplicating Herschel Tracks. (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums