661K views · Jun 8, 2010 · 1:49 · 0 HN recommenders · 4 mentions · discussed 2017–2025
A Harvard lecture demonstration in which five metronomes on a movable board gradually fall into synchronization through coupling. Removing the coupling lets them drift out of step.
Why Hacker News points people here: Cited as the canonical visual demonstration of coupled oscillators synchronizing, applied to analogies from brain waves to LLM populations.
“Everything that oscillates at roughly the same frequency and has some coupling synchronizes.”HN comment, 2023
“Huygens synchronization, oscillators sync up through resonance...”
Demonstrates oscillators syncing through coupling.
resonance is a hellofa thing Can carry information, cf. Huygens synchronization, oscillators sync up through resonance... this video
“Everything that oscillates at roughly the same frequency and has some coupling synchronizes.”
Demonstrates coupled oscillators synchronizing.
Everything that oscillates at roughly the same frequency and has some coupling synchronizes.[1] No surprise here. [1] this video
“Watch this video of metronomes self-synchronizing.”
Metronomes self-synchronizing as a pervasive phenomenon.
That may be reading too much into this behavior. Watch this video of metronomes self-synchronizing.[1] That's a pervasive phenomenon. Anything with similar oscillation frequency and coupling will do this. (Including polling systems with fixed retry intervals.) Are you sure that's not just this effect? [1] this video
“You might find some inspiration in this video of metronomes synchronising and desynchronysing”
Metronomes synchronising and desynchronising.
You might find some inspiration in this video of metronomes synchronising and desynchronysing [0]. It doesn't take much to cause things to happen at the same time, in the case the CEOs are likely all responding to the same market signals at the same time for the same reason. Probably interest rates. [0] this video
