David Bell found a new type of Period 36 c/3
puffer engine, and gave some examples that produced a Block, Boat, Beehive and backward
rake Glider. Nicolay Beluchenko then showed how the Beehive and Glider rakes could be
combined to produce a forward Glider rake.
Hartmut Holzwart has found a new type of Period 8 Block Puffer.
Here's another batch of puffer orbits found by Jason Summers.
In the following tables, the percentages are approximate, intended to illustrate how common or rare a particular puffer might be. The bit patterns are not the actual puffer, but a simpler pattern which will eventually evolve into the puffer.
The first puffer presented here is a based on a large Period 3 which moves at a speed of
c/3. It also has a slightly smaller Period 12 variation.
| P222+102 | ≈97% |
| P114+3 | ≈3% |
| 306P3H1V0 | 0.04% |
| P273+130 | 0% |
| P180+161 | 0.005% |
| 450+239 | trace |
| 304P12H4V0 | trace |
The next set of puffers are based on a Period 28 Spaceship.
| 213P28H7V0 | 99.94% |
| 140+90 | 0.04% |
| P168+109 | 0.02% |
| P56+14 | trace |
Another pair of puffers are based on a Period 2 Spaceship previously used to create a Period 8 Glider rake,
both of which are shown also.
| P224+124 | 99.98% |
| P32+7 | 0.02% |
The final set includes a previously known B Heptomino based Tub puffer.
| P24+4 | 99.87% |
| P12+7 | 0.13% |
| P2724+4153 | 0.02% |
Jason Summers has investigated puffer train variants and found some new ones. The strategy was to take a known puffer and add random bits behind it. He calls them "orbits", a term from Chaos Theory where oscillating systems stabilize into a predictable state. The puffers here are referred to by their period and the number of bits added per cycle.
| Switch Engine | ||
|---|---|---|
| P288+32 | 8 Block | 71% |
| P384+59 | Forward Glider | 29% |
He also investigated a number of other puffers. For a single Switch Engine, only the two known variants appeared. Several other puffers, including the Schick Engine, the P16 Coe Ship, and others, produced no new variations.
In the following tables, the percentages are approximate, intended to illustrate how common or rare a particular puffer might be. The bit patterns are not the actual puffer, but a simpler pattern which will eventually evolve into the puffer.
The first puffer presented here is a single B Heptomino supported by a pair of
Lightweight Spaceships. This was the first variety of puffer
train discovered by William Gosper in 1971 (P140+440). It was only during this survey that Summers discovered a
simple spaceship version, featured in a previous posting, was found.
| P140+440 | 83.6% |
| P100+210 | 16.2% |
| P20+359 | 0.16% |
| P100+56 | 0.05% |
| 32P20H10V0 | 0.015% |
| P200+195 | 0.015% |
| P100+98 | trace |
The next set of puffers are based on the Twin-B Heptomino puffers. The most common one
produces the 14 bit Bookends stable object, and was also
discovered by William Gosper.
| P128+26 | 99.77% |
| P256+545 | 0.105% |
| P256+743 | 0.055% |
| P32+34 | 0.042% |
| P256+525 | 0.022% |
| P256+386 | 0.004% |
| P128+240 | trace |
Another set of puffers are based on the 59P4H2V0 Spaceship discovered by Hartmut Holzwart.
| P64+20 | 97.2% |
| P128+92 | 2.3% |
| 59P4H2V0.1 | 0.40% |
| P144+123 | 0.05% |
| P624+633 | 0.003% |
| P96+113 | 0.001% |
David Bell has constructed a new, compact 5-engine Cordership that contains a releasable sideways glider, and has compiled a series of related results. The pattern at the far right shows a number of ways for the Cordership's northeast edge blocks to be suppressed, allowing the sideways glider to escape.
These new results build on other new Cordership constructions recently -- in particular, a small 3-engine Cordership discovered by Paul Tooke (with the help of Paul Callahan's handy 'gencols' utility) on January 12 of last year. David Bell discovered that it can turn an LWSS 90 degrees, as shown here.
Bell has also produced a series of related Cordership-rake patterns:
A Cordership-based glider-to-backward-LWSS reaction
A 'beehive-puller' Cordership
A p96 forward glider rake
A new smaller p384 'Freeze-Tag' spaceship
A reaction converting two forward gliders to an HWSS
p192 backward HWSS rake
A p96 backward HWSS rake
A p768 backward HWSS rake
A p96 forward LWSS rake
A p96 forward MWSS rake
An alternate p96 forward MWSS rake
A p768 forward LWSS rake
A high-period Cordership-based feedback loop
A wide thin p96 backward rake
A p288 'litterbug' spaceship
A p96 backward LWSS rake
An alternate p96 backward LWSS rake
A p96 backward MWSS rake based on a loaf puffer
A backward LWSS puffer based on an eater/tub-with-tail puffer
Related to this last pattern, he notes that a line of tub-with-tails "can support one side of a switch engine without being modified. Two diagonal lines of them can support one or more switch engines at the ends, and one line can support a 3-engine wing component."
Harmut Holzwart has found a smaller version (on the left) of a c/2 Period 8 Blinker pair puffer first reported by Chris Lu in August of 2002 (on the right).