What to watch
- The outer block cells remain stable.
- The two inner corner cells blink on and off.
- It helps explain how catalysts can stay mostly intact while influencing a reaction.
Oscillators
Beacon
Two blocks that repeatedly switch their touching corner cells.
The beacon is a clear bridge between stable still lifes and oscillators: two stable blocks are placed close enough that the corner interaction becomes periodic.
- Category
- Oscillators
- Period
- 2
- Movement
- bounded
- Population
- 8 cells
- Bounding box
- 4 x 4
- Known since
- 1970
How to use it
Use it to introduce local interaction between otherwise stable objects.
Open the pattern in the lab, reduce the speed, and use single-step mode when a phase change is hard to see. The green preview marks births in the next generation; red outlines mark live cells that will die.