Place two identical metronomes on a wooden bar mounted on two fizzy-drink cans, and you’ll find that the rhythms of these mechanical devices – used by musicians to keep time – can synchronize within minutes or even seconds. Pacemaker cells, for example, have to fire electrical discharges synchronously to ensure our hearts beat properly.įor physicists, synchronization is particularly intriguing in inert systems. Synchronization is essential to life too. Extending from unconscious entities to human beings, it’s even an Olympic sport in the form of synchronized swimming or diving. Synchronization – two or more events happening at the same time – is one of the most common phenomena in nature. A school of fish swimming gracefully together in the sea. Violinists in an orchestra playing perfectly in unison. But as Jonatan Pena Ramirez and Henk Nijmeijer explain, synchronized pendulums still have today’s researchers scratching their heads (Courtesy: Frederique Swist/IOP Publishing)īallet dancers moving in harmony to the rhythm of music. The fact that pairs of moving pendulums can become synchronized was first observed by the great Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens back in the 17th century.
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