Comments on: 32 metronomes attaining spontaneous synchrony

By: Hillary McLaughlin

Hillary McLaughlin — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 15:02:00 +0000

I am a little fed up with all of the anthropomorphization throughout this comment thread. They are metronomes doing what physics dictates they do given the circumstances. They are not soldiers or any other variety of people. Nor do they prove or disprove the existence of a human deity.

By: Linley Lee

Linley Lee — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 01:35:00 +0000

Well obviously I hate Cory and all he stands for. As this is news to me, do you have suggestions on what my next step should be?

By: Steve

Steve — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 23:52:00 +0000

How could you! Cory said it’s sad because they won’t just do their own thing. SAD

By: Henry Lowengard

Henry Lowengard — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 20:38:00 +0000

t all works because the total sum of the motions are added up and transmitted to each of the metronomes. The “out of phase” motions are suppressed while “in phase” ones are reenforced. It’s also how sound is produced out of noisy excitation in acoustic instruments (e.g. wind, stringed instruments). Indeed, if there were metronomes running at integral multiples of the most prevalent original speed, they too would synch up at their own rates. Anyone want to try that?

By: Brent Kirkham

Brent Kirkham — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 19:42:00 +0000

Surely this is Entrainment. A very common (thankfully) occurrence in musical settings, also known as being in the groove.

By: snagglepuss

snagglepuss — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 17:01:00 +0000

Resistance is futile.

By: shrocket

shrocket — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 16:03:00 +0000

Fantastic and slightly creepy. I was reminded of both Terry Riley’s “In C” and Steve’ Reich’s “Music for 18 Musicians” (neither of which is particularly creepy). Here’s some “In C”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qy42bYyQNAg&feature=related

By: Delaney Davis

Delaney Davis — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 15:16:00 +0000

160 BPM, for any others who are a little obsessive :)

(My superpower is identifying 80BPM, so I guessed 160, but verified it anyway!)

By: esquire

esquire — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 15:12:00 +0000

“I smell a parable.”

That was me, sorry.

By: Linley Lee

Linley Lee — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 03:09:00 +0000

I actually found it beautiful.

By: pjcamp

pjcamp — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 02:08:00 +0000

Nope. Physics problem solved by Christiaan Huygens while lying in bed with the flu and having nothing to do all day but watch two pendulum clocks on a shelf.

By: austinhamman

austinhamman — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 00:26:00 +0000

i too thought of intelligent designs fictitious claim that order cannot arise out of disorder.
its a rather nice model for evolution actually, those which become synced become more fit, as the synchronized ones exert more influence on the table, thus those which swing against this influence lose energy while those who swing with it or slightly behind it gain energy, then just following the simple laws of physics from a random set of swinging pendulums you get an ordered set of pendulums all swinging in unison. they arent trying to, they arent saying “hey swing my way” its just as two happen to get in sync they influence the selective pressure of those around them to also get in sync.

By: Petzl

Petzl — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 00:03:00 +0000

Wow. I was thinking that these must be sophisticated metronomes that have some sort of cellular automata coding to allow them speed up or slow down according to what their neighbor was doing. And the actual solution was the lowest of low tech: placing them all on a slightly wobbly surface.

By: Acoustic Ross

Acoustic Ross — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 22:59:00 +0000

I’ll admit it. I teared up a little when that last guy on the right finally got into step.

By: SamSam

SamSam — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 21:37:00 +0000

Nope, chaotic systems are not predictable, by definition.

Chaotic systems may be deterministic, but this is not the same thing. With a deterministic chaotic system you can always work out what will happen at the very next time point, but you cannot predict what will happen at the hundredth time point, without working out all the time points in between.

It’s a subtle, but important, distinction.

By: oasisob1

oasisob1 — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 21:35:00 +0000

I love the colorful Japanese metronomes. They are simply wonderful to look at.

By: wolfman_al2

wolfman_al2 — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 21:28:00 +0000

Deep, man.

By: Theranthrope

Theranthrope — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 21:18:00 +0000

You’re more right than you know.

The original purpose of marching was to get ground troops from one place to another efficiently in a coherent group, however it was discovered by military commanders that marching has an additional benefit in that it is: “thought stopping” (where individual soldiers are too busy focusing on maintaining correct time that there is literally no time to think: “why am I here?” “why am I fighting?” “is my enemy really my enemy” or “I want to go home to my family”) which preempt thoughts of sedition or desertion.

There is a direct correlation between the amount of “thought stopping” and the complexity and difficulty of an army’s drill; q.v. “goose stepping” of the historical armies of the German Third Reich or the modern armed forces of North Korea:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=096hnKDw5tc

By: Shay Guy

Shay Guy — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 21:15:00 +0000

Makes me think of the cellular-automata experiment described here.

By: Donald Petersen

Donald Petersen — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 21:13:00 +0000

I'm a drummer with a strong love for rhythm, and this video still filled me with crawling horror. It was like being on Camazotz, and I wanna get the hell outta there.

By: mzed

mzed — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 21:03:00 +0000

It seems to be the opposite of my band.

By: Theranthrope

Theranthrope — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 20:59:00 +0000

…and in other news:

“4 minutes later, they attain synchrony. It’s quite remarkable (and a little sad for those of us with a nonconformist bent!)”

Cory has never been in a band …and probably sucks at dancing.

By: Theranthrope

Theranthrope — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 20:57:00 +0000

Close.

出る釘は打たれる ”The nail that sticks out gets hit”.

By: James Leese

James Leese — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 19:12:00 +0000

You can still be a non-conformist! you just need something solid to stand on.

By: LaylaSV

LaylaSV — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 18:01:00 +0000

I love that little outlier.

By: Eric Stethoscope

Eric Stethoscope — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 17:32:00 +0000

I crossed my eyes slightly while looking at this and then refocused. It was weirder at the beginning than at the end. and a little 3d!

By: DJ Cat Gif

DJ Cat Gif — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 17:23:00 +0000

chaotic systems are perfectly predictable. it’s other criteria that classify them as ‘chaotic.’

By: Kimmo

Kimmo — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 16:58:00 +0000

Heh – if you could predict it, it wouldn’t be chaos ; )

By: OtherMichael

OtherMichael — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 16:55:00 +0000

Ligetti’s earlier Inversion: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCp7bL-AWvw

By: Boundegar

Boundegar — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 16:31:00 +0000

The cool part is, if just one of them was set to a non-harmonic frequency, it might inject enough chaos into the system to prevent the others from synchronizing. But chaos is funny – a slightly different frequency could have the opposite effect.