glider gun

plural glider guns

1. cellular automataIn the Game of Life, any pattern that "fires" out gliders.

   Alas this transformation by itself increases traversal length of the circuit because these new glider guns are much larger.

   1998, M. Delorme, Jacques Mazoyer, Cellular automata: a parallel model, page 64

   2 more examples

   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.

   1989 October 31, Scott Huddleston, “life: glider guns”, in comp.theory.cell-automata (Usenet)

   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.

   2005 January 2, Kent Dolan, “Re: Smaller UTM than Rule110”, in comp.theory.cell-automata (Usenet)