What to watch
- The bounding box alternates between two shapes.
- It has a larger active region than the blinker.
- Its phases are useful for explaining oscillator envelopes.
Oscillators
Toad
A period-2 oscillator made from two offset rows of three cells.
The toad demonstrates how a compact object can briefly expand and then contract back into its original phase.
- Category
- Oscillators
- Period
- 2
- Movement
- bounded
- Population
- 6 cells
- Bounding box
- 4 x 2
- Known since
- 1970
How to use it
Use it to compare period-2 behavior with a wider active envelope.
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.