glider gun

Definitions

1. 1

   In the Game of Life, any pattern that "fires" out gliders.

   • But in one position and phase of a 2-bee shuttle (the standard glider gun), the debris evolves into a glider and sails away before the bees return.
   • Alas this transformation by itself increases traversal length of the circuit because these new glider guns are much larger.
   • In particular, since those two patterns extend their repetitions endlessly to the left and right, there is no need for a "glider gun" to provide a continuous supply of new patterns, as you suggest.

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