What to watch
- The eight-cell seed quickly leaves its initial 6 x 4 box.
- It is connected to c/12 diagonal puffers and spaceships.
- It is easier to explain before showing the larger block-laying switch engine.
Growth patterns
Switch engine
A small methuselah that can be used to build diagonal puffers.
The switch engine is a useful conceptual bridge: it starts small like a methuselah, but its descendants can become puffers and block-laying engines when stabilized by the right debris.
- Category
- Growth patterns
- Period
- Long-lived seed
- Movement
- bounded
- Population
- 8 cells
- Bounding box
- 6 x 4
- Lifespan
- 3,911 generations
- Known since
- 1971
How to use it
Use it as a transition from methuselah pages to puffer and infinite-growth pages.
Open the pattern in the lab, reduce the speed, and use single-step mode when a phase change is hard to see. The green preview marks births in the next generation; red outlines mark live cells that will die.