In 1665, the Dutch physicist Christiaan Huygens put two pendulum clocks next to each other. To his surprise, after half an hour or so, they started swinging in sync (actually, anti-sync, in opposite directions). No matter where he put them, or how off-sync they started, it happened over and over. This phenomenon, called phase locking, has been confirmed in many different situations, including heart cells that twitch together, fireflies that fire together, and moons that synchronize their spi...
Published on April 10, 2016 01:31