As menitoned in an
earlier posting, an ongoing project of mine is to catalog the collisions of a Glider
with 16 and 17 bit objects looking for anything of interest. One of these was a reaction with
a [16.732] that resulted in a Fishhook Eater
[7.3] and some debris. In trying various ways that
a Glider might clean it up, I came across a [10.14] instead.
A quick examination showed that this object was the result of interacting with a Long Boat
[7.2] predecessor. Since Long Boats can be made with three
Gliders, this meant that a [10.14] could be made with four, an
improvement on the previous minimum construction of five Gliders.
This announcement seems to have triggered an avalanche of new constructions found mostly
by Dean Hickerson, with a few by Mark Niemiec. First he posted a eleven Glider construction of a
[17P2.198] Period 2 Griddle-type oscillator. This is a considerable
improvement over previously known constructions for Griddle-type oscillators, which took from 14 to 16 to
more Gliders to make. Numerous techniques for altering the Beehive [6.4]
inductor to other objects are well known, but Mark Niemiec showed
how it could also be convereted before stabilization into a Boat [5.1] or
a Loaf [7.4] by two additional Gliders, a considerable improvement over the
conversion of the Beehive into those objects. (The images shown here begin at Generation 199 of the basic
11 Glider construction.)
Hickerson has also been investigating multiple random Glider collsions, and from these has presented a hos
of new constructions, mostly four to six Gliders. Many ore improvements on previously known constructions,
which also means that constructions based on those objects are also improved. From a few of these, Niemeic
also found shown some improved variations, mostly of pseudo-objects.
from D.Hickerson:
from M.Niemec:
