What to watch
- Step once to see a 90-degree phase change.
- Step twice and it returns to the initial state.
- It is the most common oscillator in random soup ash.
Oscillators
Blinker
The smallest oscillator, flipping between vertical and horizontal lines.
The blinker makes the Life rule legible in two steps: the endpoints die, and the two side births create the perpendicular phase.
- Category
- Oscillators
- Period
- 2
- Movement
- bounded
- Population
- 3 cells
- Bounding box
- 3 x 3
- Known since
- 1970
How to use it
Use it as the first periodic example after still lifes.
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.