pentadecathlon

English

A pentadecathlon in Conway's Game of Life.

Etymology

From pentadeca- +‎ -athlon.

Noun

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.