Guns (Game of Life)

A 'gun' (in the world of Cellular Automata) is a stationary pattern that emits moving patterns (i.e. spaceships).

Note that a gun is a pattern which grows without limit.

The first gun to be discovered was the Gosper Glider Gun. It is also the simplest known gun in Conway's Game of Life. It was discovered by Bill Gosper, who also discovered the FlowSnake (also known as the Gosper Curve).

Gosper Glider Gun

Below is the Gosper Glider Gun, which emits a steady stream of gliders. It has a period of 30, as it emits a new glider ever 30 generations.

For the purposes of this demonstration I've also added an eater, at the bottom of the pattern, which destroys the gliders, before they have a chance to wrap around and monkey-wrench the gun. (I'm using a toroidal array, i.e. a wrap-around world... as I can't afford the infinite pixels required for a true GOL board.)

000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000010000000000000
000000000000000000000001010000000000000
000000000000011000000110000000000001100
000000000000100010000110000000000001100
011000000001000001000110000000000000000
011000000001000101100001010000000000000
000000000001000001000000010000000000000
000000000000100010000000000000000000000
000000000000011000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000001100000000000
000000000000000000000000001100010000000
000000000000000000000000000000101000000
000000000000000000000000000000010100000
000000000000000000000000000000000100000
000000000000000000000000000000000110000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000

See Also

 

Game of Life implementation via nomatteus.