Talk:List of common oscillators

Period on this page?

I'm thinking we might as well add a column to this page that shows the period of each oscillator listed (and similarly on the list of common still lifes we should add a column with the number of cells in the pattern) for easy reference. Thoughts? Nathaniel 00:13, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

That makes sense. Maybe even one for period, one for number of cells on this page? There's still a lot of space on my screen (and also, one would think that both are sort of related to frequency of occurrence). Elithrion 00:44, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Kk, I've added period. I'll add cells later when I add cells to the other list. Nathaniel 00:52, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I've added an entry and a column for heat, and added an "h=" option to the oscillator template so that the infobox on oscillator pages can display the heat of that oscillator. I'll start adding cell counts now. One thing I wanted input on though: currently none of the period numbers in the table are links... should the first occurrence of each period in the table link to that category? (eg. should the "3" beside pulsar in the table link to the category of oscillators with period 3?) Nathaniel 03:41, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Hmm... well, more links are almost never a bad thing, so sure! On a side note, heat on its own seems almost pointless - I know the pulsar is really hot because it's really big. Heat per cell or something like that would be a better measure. Although, that said, I guess having a heat column and a cells column almost removes that problem. Elithrion 03:49, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree with your comment about heat by itself being a silly measure. I'm reluctant to change it though because it seems as though heat is what's used commonly, and as you said, with cells listed there as well it's not a huge issue. Nathaniel 04:08, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Names

So, umm... can we call this one "Test tube baby and tub" (or maybe "with tub" or "in tub", heh). That's basically what it is, and I doubt that anyone out there has a different name coined for it anyway. Elithrion 05:18, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Yeah I was going to suggest that we pick a name for that one as well (I was going to suggest "odd test tube baby" in analogy to short keys, bent keys, and odd keys, but I'm perfectly happy with either name, or even putting one as an alternate name on the page). Nathaniel 05:25, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I think I like yours better, not least because I didn't really notice thee tub/non-tub distinction at first. Ah, paying attention, I should try it some time... Elithrion 05:56, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Kk, I've added that page now. Nathaniel 13:51, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

By rotor version

I started one here: List of common oscillators/By rotor

Still needs summing of frequencies (and perhaps a renumeration of ranking), but preliminarly, three things stand out:

• Orthogonal on-off variants altogether seem to be almost as frequent as figure 8; taken to infinity, it may or may not overtake it.
• Queen bees altogether are more common than mazing, blocker, and jam, probably also more common than tripole (but that one could have further) (And yes, I'm aware the cis-QB and trans-QB have technically different rotors.)
• Phoenix and hook-eating-tub variants are giving tumbler a run for its money; I would bet on their order to reverse in the long run as more soup data is accounted, since a griddle w/loaf should probably be about as common as the boat variant…

--Tropylium 02:21, 3 June 2011 (CDT)

A larger census was done a while ago which had much higher frequencies and for a larger amount of oscillators. Here is a backup of it, the original was lost when Geocities closed. It has similar problems with the data (no way of differentiating between cis and trans-QB's, or telling 2 eaters from the p3 Two eaters).Maybe this could be used to make a more accurate version of the table? Lewis 07:54, 8 June 2011 (CDT)