Signal elbow
A signal elbow is a conduit with signal output 90 degrees from its input. This term is commonly used only for signal wires, particularly 2c/3 signals. A Snark could reasonably be called a "glider elbow", but "glider reflector" is the standard term. A signal elbow with a recovery time less than 20 ticks would enable a trivial proof that Conway's Life is omniperiodic.
A near miss is the following elbow-like converter found by Dean Hickerson. It successfully turns a 2c/3 signal by 90 degrees, but unfortunately changes it to a double-length signal in the process. This means that further copies of the converter can not be appended (e.g., to make a closed loop).
| <html><div class="rle"><div class="codebox"><div style="display:none;"><code></html>x = 34, y = 44, rule = B3/S23
24bo2bo$24b6o$30bob2o$22b5obobob2o$21bo6bobo$21b5o2bobo$18bo7bob2o$18b
6o2bo$24bobo$16b6o2bob2o$10b2o3bo6bobo$9bo2bo2b5o2bobo$8bob3o7bob2o$4b
2obobo3b5o2bo$5bobo3bo6bobo$5bobo2b6o2bob2o$3bobobobo6bobo$2bob2o2bob
4o2bobo$2bo3bobobo3bob2o$2ob2obobo3bobo$bobo2bob4obob3o$o2bobo7bo3bo$b
3o2b8o$4bobo$3b2obo2b7o$2bo2b2obo7bo$2b2o4bo2b6o$8bobo$7b2obo2b6o$10bo
bo6bo$10bobo2b5o$11b2obo7bo$14bo2b6o$14bobo$13b2obo2b6o$16bobo6bob2o$
16bobo2b5ob2o$17b2obo$20bo2b6o$20bobo5bo$19b2obo2b3o$22bobo5b2o$22bo2b
o4b2o$23b2o!
#C [[ THUMBSIZE 2 THEME 6 GRID GRIDMAJOR 0 SUPPRESS THUMBLAUNCH ]]
#C [[ THEME 6 GRID THUMBLAUNCH THUMBSIZE 2 ]]<html></code></div></div><canvas width="200" height="300" style="margin-left:1px;"><noscript></html> Please enable Javascript to view this LifeViewer. <html></noscript></canvas></div></html> |
| (click above to open LifeViewer) RLE: here Plaintext: here |
Relatively small composite MWSS elbows can now be constructed, using Tanner Jacobi's 2015 discovery of a small H-to-MWSS component. For example, the Orthogonoid includes a constructor/reflector that reflects an MWSS stream by 180 degrees, but it can be trivially reconfigured to make a 90-degree MWSS elbow.