Mathematician

	Mathematician
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	<a href="/wiki/File:Mathematician.png" class="image" title="Mathematician image"><img alt="Mathematician image" src="/w/images/0/06/Mathematician.png" decoding="async" width="177" height="209" /></a>
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Pattern type	Oscillator
Oscillator type	Billiard table
Number of cells	35
Bounding box	9×11
Period	5
Mod	5
Heat	3.2
Volatility	0.20
Strict volatility	0.20
Discovered by	David Buckingham
Year of discovery	1972
Rules
Outer-totalistic rules	B3/S23 – B38/S0235678
Important rules	Conway Life
# of rules	26 = 64
Isotropic rules	B3ijnry/S2-n3-ackn – B2n34ejkrtwy5ciknq6-i7c8/S01c234-itz5678
Glider synthesis
Fewest gliders (canonical)	28†
Catagolue-generated RLE (canonical)	mathematician_synth.rle
Fewest gliders (cheapest variant)	24†
Catagolue-generated RLE (cheapest variant)	mathematician_synth.rle
	†Can be constructed with 16 gliders using the reverse caber tosser universal constructor.
Pattern files
Plaintext	mathematician.cells
RLE	mathematician.rle
Identifiers
apgcode (canonical)	xp5_6s1v071c88gz118f0e8311
apgcode (cheapest variant)	xp5_g25a8cwgzd5hp3ph5dzx343
Pentadecathlon ID	35P5.4

The mathematician is a period-5 oscillator that was found in 1972 by David Buckingham.^[1]^[2] A variant of it first appeared semi-naturally in April 2016.^[3]

A 99-glider synthesis of this oscillator was found by Inferno on August 2, 2021 based on a final step posted by iNoMed.^[4] Over the next few days, this was reduced by iNoMed, wwei23, MathAndCode, Tanner Jacobi, and Martin Grant to 28 gliders.^[5]^[6]

References

↑ Robert Wainwright (October 1972). Lifeline, vol 6, page 3.
↑ Dean Hickerson's oscillator stamp collection. Retrieved on March 14, 2020.
↑ Dongook Lee (April 6, 2016). Re: Soup search results (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums
↑ iNoMed (August 2, 2021). Re: Synthesising Oscillators (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums
↑ iNoMed (August 3, 2021). Re: Synthesising Oscillators (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums
↑ Martin Grant (August 4, 2021). Re: Synthesising Oscillators (discussion thread) at the ConwayLife.com forums