Dean Hickerson's oscillator stamp collection

Dean Hickerson's oscillator stamp collection is a collection of 650 oscillators of 83 different periods from 1 to 40894, found/built by many people over many years. The stamp collection was put together in August 1995; since then, many new oscillators have been found.

The header comment of the collection contains descriptions of particular oscillators. Each entry begins with an identifying label of the form "period.row.column", with row and column number starting at zero; as an example, 2.0.0 refers to the blinker.

The comments weren't quite complete; for example, 15.0.0 (pentadecathlon) mentions a note that it needs to be updated with more information.

Introduction

Dean Hickerson starts by explaining what oscillator periods exist and don't exist as of 2009, even though the collection is from 1995. He then explains how the oscillator comment section works with section numbering, name abbreviations, and symmetry types. A small part of the header belongs in the period 1 section (i.e. still lifes) but can be included because it still comes before any patterns.

Periods

• 1: still lifes are grouped by cell count up to 10 cells. Larger ones are included so that all 43 symmetry types can be present in the collection.
• 2: small period-2 oscillators, oscillators exhibiting certain types of symmetry, wicks, and agars are all included.
• 3: small period-3 oscillators and wicks are included. At the end of the period-3 section, the pulsar and two variants are shown along with extended versions.
• 4 - 6: in addition to the typical small oscillators, there are wicks and sparkers.
• 7: period 7 has few entries, mostly billiard tables.
• 8: period 8 has oscillators based on figure eight and some supported by period-2 and 4 oscillators such as mold.
• 9 - 11: periods 9-11 are mostly period-independent oscillators. 11 only has three examples: 38P11, Achim's p11, and a honey farm hassler.
• 12: period 12 is mostly hasslers, such as dinner table and oscillators of multiple types based on carnival shuttle and baker's dozen.
• 13 - 14: 13 and 14 each only have one example: Buckingham's p13 and tumbler.
• 15: with one exception (p15 bi-block hassler), all p15 oscillators are pentadecathlon-based.
• 16: period 16 is entirely hasslers.
• 18 - 21: periods 18, 20, and 21 are hasslers of various types. 17, 19, 22, and 23, being unknown in 1995, are skipped.
• 24: most p24 oscillators in the collection are based on a traffic light hassler supported by a p4 dot fountain.
• 25 - 29: the p25 through p29 sections are entirely traffic light hasslers, with 26, 28, 29 being pre-pulsar shuttles and p25 being single. 27 is skipped because the period was unknown at the time.
• 30: 30 is a large section. It includes a mix of queen bee shuttle variants, eureka variants, and a few others.
• 32: all but one is a form of gourmet.
• 35 - 44: 35, 36, 40, 42, and 44 are mostly hasslers.
• 45: pentadecathlon on snacker.
• 46: 46 is a large section, entirely based on twin bees shuttles. Guns and XWSSes make appearances.
• 47 - 58: 47, 48, 50, 52, 54, 55, 56, and 58 are various hasslers. Toadflippers and toadsuckers make appearances in 48, 56, and 58.
• 60: 60 is a large section. Most are queen bee-based, including several glider guns, but pentadecathlons also make an appearance. The explanation of toadflipper and toadsucker numbering is here, with all five types near the top of the column.
• 72 - 88: one oscillator each for 72 (two blockers hassling R-pentomino, 75 (6 bits), 80 (fumarole on Achim's other p16), and 88 (period-doubled p44 pi-heptomino hassler).
• 90: being a multiple of 30, the three oscillators in this section feature queen bee shuttles and pentadecathlons.
• 92: period-doubling reactions for twin bees shuttles.
• 96 - 110: miscellaneous: traffic jams, toadflippers/toadsuckers, an LCM, and a few others.
• 120: all queen bee shuttle-based: glider shuttle and guns for gliders, LWSSes, MWSSes, and HWSSes.
• 124: four ways to support the same lumps of muck reaction.
• 128 - 690: more hasslers, shuttles, glider loops, and a few LCMs, plus a few Herschel tracks that rely on p8 technology. Stable Herschel technology didn't exist in 1995.
• 808, 856: large p8 Herschel loops.
• 2700, 15240, 40894: these are the last three: crystallization and decay oscillator, p120-based PRNG, and p46-based PRNG.

External links

• Stamp collection on Dean Hickerson's Life page