Dean Hickerson

Dean Robert Hickerson is a mathematician and Life enthusiast who has made many major contributions to the Game of Life.

Dean Hickerson
Born Unknown
Residence United States
Nationality Unknown
Institutions Unknown
Alma mater University of California, Berkeley

In 1989 Hickerson created the first oscillator search program with which he found many small, low-period oscillators, such as caterer, Monogram, and fumarole. He has since found many sparkers as well as billiard tables, including the first known period-17 oscillators.

Hickerson also used automated searches to discover the first spaceships other than the glider and the various speed c/2 orthogonal spaceships; these new spaceships traveled at speeds c/3, c/4, and 2c/5. In addition to these, he discovered the first diagonal c/4 spaceship other than the glider, as well as the first period 2 spaceships. He again advanced spaceship technology when, in 1991, he successfully combined thirteen switch engines to create the first c/12 diagonal spaceship, the 13-engine Cordership.

In 1991 Hickerson created the first sawtooth, sawtooth 1212, using one of his c/3 spaceships, the turtle.

Patterns found by Dean Hickerson

gollark: I'm currently looking for decent note-taking stuff and also a bookmark management thingy.
gollark: Can anyone recommend useful self-hostable stuff?
gollark: Put in 59 and go up to 62? I assume you want 62.
gollark: The stuff which shows up highest for clicks and impressions is random commits from a few of my git repositories.
gollark: Some of these make sense, but I have no idea how `mathematics textbook +publishers` is related.

References

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