Sync: How Order Emerges from Chaos In the Universe, Nature, and Daily Life

All the examples are variations on the same mathematical theme: self-organization, the spontaneous emergence of order out of chaos.

For reasons we don’t yet understand, the tendency to synchronize is one of the most pervasive drives in the universe, extending from atoms to animals, from people to planets. Female friends or coworkers who spend a great deal of time together often find that their menstrual periods tend to start around the same day. Sperm swimming side by side en r

it results in a kind of cosmic ballet that plays out on stages that range from our bodies to the universe as a whole.

transient sync

How exactly do coupled oscillators synchronize themselves, and under what conditions? When is sync impossible and when is it inevitable? What other modes of organization are to be expected when sync breaks down? And what are the practical implications of all that we’re trying to learn?

The laws of thermodynamics seem to dictate the opposite, that nature should inexorably degenerate toward a state of greater disorder, greater entropy. Yet all around us we see magnificent structures—galaxies, cells, ecosystems, human beings—that have somehow managed to assemble themselves.

For reasons we don’t yet understand, the tendency to synchronize is one of the most pervasive drives in the universe, extending from atoms to animals, from people to planets.

at a deeper level, there is a connection, one that transcends the details of any particular mechanism. That connection is mathematics. All the examples are variations on the same mathematical theme: self-organization, the spontaneous emergence of order out of chaos.

Sync is both strange and beautiful. It is strange because it seems to defy the laws of physics (though in fact it relies on them, often in curious ways). It is beautiful because