Game of Life News

David Bell has discovered an unusual catalytic reaction involving a tub-with-tail and a switch engine. Tub-with-tails can be arranged in a double line to produce an extensible diagonal switch-engine conduit.

The reaction is unusual for several reasons:
1) Tub-with-tails don't usually catalyze alone -- a tub-with-tail is more commonly paired with a block or other still life, which makes it capable of 'eating' a glider or similar active pattern.
2) The catalysis used in the bobsled run is a reaction that has not been used in previously known Herschel/B-heptomino/R-pentomino/pi conduits.
3) While Herschels do make an appearance in this conduit, they don't play an important role -- in fact, they must be suppressed in order for the reaction to be repeatable.

One possible open problem would be to construct converters to attach to each end of the 'bobsled run', one taking a Herschel (or glider, spaceship, etc.) as input, and one producing one of these standard signals as an output.

Update:Plain tubs, barges, long barges, etc. can be used in place of tub-with-tails; see "Bobsled Run Update" posting on September 6, 2005.