Breeder (cellular automaton)
In Conway's Game of Life, a breeder is a pattern that exhibits quadratic growth, by generating multiple copies of a secondary pattern, each of which then generates multiple copies of a tertiary pattern.[1]
Classification
Breeders can be classed by the relative motion of the patterns. The four basic types are:[1]
- A gun that fires out rakes. (The primary pattern is stationary, whilst both the secondary and tertiary patterns move.)
- A puffer that leaves guns in its wake. (The secondary patterns are stationary, whilst both the primary and tertiary patterns move.)
- A rake that fires out puffers. (The tertiary patterns are stationary, whilst the primary and secondary patterns move.)
- A rake that fires out more rakes. (All the patterns move.)
A spacefiller (which also undergoes quadratic growth) may be thought of as a fifth class of breeder. However it differs from a true breeder in that it expands a single island of cells, rather than creating independent objects.
References
|
|
Structures |
|
|
Life variants |
|
|
Concepts |
|
|
Implementations |
|
|
Key people |
|
|
Popular culture |
|
|