Weird Science

I snagged this video from my friend Matt's blog, and I had to watch it two or three times before I even believed it. Physics make me nuts. Below is the explanation as it appears on YouTube, where this vid comes from. If that's not enough for you, check the link for the textbook as it appears in the video.



Metronomes (or "pendula") when on the table, oscillate with random phases, since that is how they started and they are "uncoupled" (no energy/information flows from one to other so they do not "know" each other.) When they are all together on the cans, notice that the cans themselves oscillate a little, providing coupling/information crossover, which forces "synchronization" in the periodic systems. This phenomenon was discovered by Huygens in 17th century.