pentadecathlon

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English[edit]

A pentadecathlon in Conway's Game of Life.

Etymology[edit]

pentadeca- +‎ -athlon

Noun[edit]

pentadecathlon (plural pentadecathlons)

  1. A sporting event consisting of fifteen different sports or contests.
  2. (cellular automata) A particular oscillator that returns to its initial state after 15 generations.
    • 1993 March 16, David Bell, “Life program (part 6/18)”, in comp.theory.cell-automata[1] (Usenet):
      X! Produces a westward stream of lightweight spaceships representing prime numbers: a LWSS escapes past the pentadecathlon around generation 120n+100 if and only if n is prime.
    • 2002 July 23, Owen Rees, “Wolfram and "general 2D simulators"”, in comp.theory.cell-automata[2] (Usenet):
      The speed was very dependent on the number of live cells, but it ran the pentadecathlon at 92 gen/sec in the last version I measured.