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Oscillators

Oscillators are patterns in Game of Life that cycle through a repeating set of states. The number of states in the cycle is called the "periodicity", e.g. "Period 2" means two states that alternate.

Period 2

Blinker (period 2)

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Toad (Period 2)

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011100
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Beacon (Period 2)

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011000
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000110
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Period 3

Pulsar (Period 3)

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00001110001110000
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00100001010000100
00001110001110000
00000000000000000
00001110001110000
00100001010000100
00100001010000100
00100001010000100
00000000000000000
00001110001110000
00000000000000000
00000000000000000

Period 25

Pentadecathlon (Period 25)

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Period 8

The Figure 8 (Period 8)

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0000000000
0011100000
0011100000
0011100000
0000011100
0000011100
0000011100
0000000000
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Background / history

John Conway referred to oscillators with period 2 as 'flip-flops'

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See Also

 

Game of Life implementation via nomatteus.