Life Lexicon (V)
Author: Stephen A. Silver
Description: Part of Stephen Silver's Life Lexicon.

Introduction | Bibliography

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:vacuum Empty space. That is, space containing only dead cells.

:Venetian blinds The p2 agar obtained by using the pattern `O..O` to tile the plane.

:very long = long long

:very long house The following induction coil.

    .OOOOO.
    O..O..O
    OO...OO

:volatility The volatility of an oscillator is the size (in cells) of its rotor divided by the sum of the sizes of its rotor and its stator. In other words, it is the proportion of cells involved in the oscillator which actually oscillate. For many periods there are known oscillators with volatility 1, see for example Achim's p16, figure-8, Kok's galaxy, mazing, pentadecathlon, phoenix, relay, smiley and tumbler. The smallest period for which the existence of such statorless oscillators is undecided is 3, although Dean Hickerson showed in 1994 that there are p3 oscillators with volatility arbitrarily close to 1 (as is the case for all but finitely many periods, because of the possibility of feeding the gliders from a true period n gun into an eater).

The term "volatility" is due to Robert Wainwright. See also strict volatility.

:volcano Any of a number of p5 oscillators which produce sparks. See lightweight volcano, middleweight volcano and heavyweight volcano.

:V-pentomino Conway's name for the following pentomino, a loaf predecessor.

    O..
    O..
    OOO

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