| Block is an extremely well-known and common still life that was found by John Conway in 1970. In terms of its 4 cells it is tied with tub as the smallest still life, and in terms of its 2×2 bounding box it is the outright the smallest.
Due to its small size, its ability to act as an eater, and its simple glider syntheses, it is extremely useful in the construction of large patterns. It can be used as an induction coil as in block and dock, block on table and griddle and block.
The block was one of the patterns described in the original 1970 article by Martin Gardner that introduced the Game of Life to the world.
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Latest news
600 pattern milestone — June 19th, 2009
LifeWiki is now home to a grand total of 600 patterns and over 750 articles. Exciting new additions to the wiki include weekly featured articles on the front page (as well as trivia snippets), rules boxes on pattern pages that describe what rules that particular pattern functions under, a much more complete list of the smallest known oscillators of each period, our first few articles about reflectors and recent reflector developments (see the rectifier), and several more pages detailing the accomplishments of specific Life enthusiasts. As always, thanks to all of our contributors!
500 pattern milestone — April 26th, 2009
Over 500 patterns are now catalogued in LifeWiki, and there are over 600 articles total. Some of the most notable recent additions to the database include the addition of glider syntheses in the infoboxes of patterns, greatly expanded information about first-discovered and smallest known spaceships and oscillators of specific speeds and periods, expanded articles about other Life-like cellular automata (such as 2x2, HighLife, and Move), and the first few pages to describe the accomplishments of specific Life enthusiasts (see Noam Elkies for an example). Thanks to all of our contributors!
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