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« New c/5 diagonal technology | Main | Minimum-population sawtooth »

2011 January 29

Rakes
Smallest LWSS Corderrake

2011-1-11-6-engine-LWSS-rake.rle
6-engine Cordership LWSS backrake
by Adam P. Goucher and Dave Greene, 23 March 2010,
based on a reaction by 'Extrementhusiast'
In March of last year, Adam Goucher built a new, very compact backwards c/12 LWSS rake, using a reaction posted by 'Extrementhusiast' on the conwaylife.com forums in which a Herschel interacting with a beehive re-creates the beehive with an 8-cell diagonal offset -- exactly the right distance to allow a Cordership to re-use the same beehive repeatedly. Switch engines produce Herschels in the correct orientation as part of their natural evolution, so the only remaining problem is to suppress some leftover junk, using a second Cordership "wing".

2011-1-11-6engine-Cordership.rle
Variant of Dean Hickerson's
7-in-a-row Cordership from July 1998,
made from a single line of 6 switch engines.
Dave Greene, 13 March 2010
A tangential discovery was that Dean Hickerson's "7-in-a-row Cordership" could be reduced to 6 engines using the same central switch engine spacing as in the LWSS backrake.

2011-1-11-Cordership-history.rle
Here is a pattern showing the progression of Cordership discoveries over the past decade, with the 7-in-a-row and 6-in-a-row Corderships included for comparison. This is by no means a comprehensive list, but it shows the general trend toward smaller and simpler designs. It is unknown whether a 2-engine Cordership exists -- this is perhaps unlikely, but certainly not impossible.

13-engine Cordership: Dean Hickerson, April 1991.

10-engine Cordership: Dean Hickerson, April 1991.

7-engine Cordership: Dean Hickerson, 14 August 1993.

7-in-a-row Cordership: Dean Hickerson, 23 July 1998.

6-in-a-row Cordership: Dave Greene, 13 March 2010.
[Slightly less expensive to construct than the 7-in-a-row. It is easy to extract a glider from a passing 6-in-a-row ship using just a tub as a catalyst; for an example, see the Cordership eater in the above link. The tail on the tub is not needed for the catalysis.]

6-engine Cordership: Dean Hickerson, 9 July 1998.

5-engine Cordership: David Bell, 5 June 2005.

4-engine Cordership: David Bell, 9 July 2005.

3-engine Cordership: Paul Tooke, 12 January 2004.

, for the 7-engine Cordership and , for the 6-engine Cordership.

Posted by Dave Greene on 2011 January 29 18:09 |