Comments on: Metronomic syncage enjoyability

Metronomic syncage enjoyability

TheDonF — Sat, 03 May 2008 09:00:15 -0800

By: googly

googly — Sat, 03 May 2008 09:08:10 -0800

This is a great metaphor for something, but I can't quite figure out what.

By: digaman

digaman — Sat, 03 May 2008 09:12:01 -0800

Mickey Hart figured out what years ago; he compared this phenomenon -- "entrainment" -- to what used to happen in a roomful of dancers and trippers when the Grateful Dead played. This is great!

By: digaman

digaman — Sat, 03 May 2008 09:14:37 -0800

Entrainment (physics). Entrainment (biomusicology).

By: interrobang

interrobang — Sat, 03 May 2008 09:20:16 -0800

If you like that, you may also enjoy this, from here.

By: starman

starman — Sat, 03 May 2008 09:20:30 -0800

I'd like to respond to this post as someone I imagine is from medieval times: What kind of sorcery... !

By: dobbs

dobbs — Sat, 03 May 2008 09:25:15 -0800

It's pleasing, yes. But very pleasing? I dunno about that.

By: digaman

digaman — Sat, 03 May 2008 09:43:54 -0800

Metafilter: It's pleasing, yes. But very pleasing? I dunno about that.

By: arcticwoman

arcticwoman — Sat, 03 May 2008 09:45:08 -0800

Truth in advertising. That was indeed very pleasing.

By: zsazsa

zsazsa — Sat, 03 May 2008 09:51:18 -0800

CONFORM

By: Fuzzy Skinner

Fuzzy Skinner — Sat, 03 May 2008 09:51:38 -0800

Big deal! I could do that too if I had 5 metronomes and a plank and 2 soda cans. And a striped shirt. And an awkward stance. Actually, that was way cooler than I expected. I liked it so much I called my daughter into the room to show her. Her response: "Wow, dad. You're a nerd."

By: False Jesii Inc.

False Jesii Inc. — Sat, 03 May 2008 10:06:57 -0800

Is this Steve Reich's new "Music for 5 Metronomes" piece?

By: Dizzy

Dizzy — Sat, 03 May 2008 10:14:22 -0800

Yes, it truly was a very pleasing video.

By: HotPatatta

HotPatatta — Sat, 03 May 2008 10:19:00 -0800

Yes, it truly was a very pleasing video. Its pleasingness gave me a happy ending.

By: DU

DU — Sat, 03 May 2008 10:19:54 -0800

Very pleasing video of ~~five metronomes syncing~~ a guy's crotch.

By: kliuless

kliuless — Sat, 03 May 2008 10:20:34 -0800

steven strogatz talks about this in _sync_ :P cheers!

By: datacenter refugee

datacenter refugee — Sat, 03 May 2008 10:26:07 -0800

Very nice modern example of Huygen's sympathetic oscillation.

By: snofoam

snofoam — Sat, 03 May 2008 11:02:36 -0800

this is very pleasing, and the thing interrobang linked to is awesome!

By: GuyZero

GuyZero — Sat, 03 May 2008 11:11:01 -0800

How has that whitney music box thing never been a FPP! That was awesome.

By: kozad

kozad — Sat, 03 May 2008 11:22:53 -0800

Organic entrainment.

By: MetaMonkey

MetaMonkey — Sat, 03 May 2008 11:23:06 -0800

If you think thats cool, try doing it to your brain

By: trip and a half

trip and a half — Sat, 03 May 2008 11:24:31 -0800

I liked that one part.

By: binturong

binturong — Sat, 03 May 2008 11:28:44 -0800

Is this the same thing that causes a platoon marching across a bridge to make the bridge shake and destruct through synchronized sympathetic vibrations -- which is why soldiers break from marching in step when crossing bridges (smallish long bridges I guess)?

By: adipocere

adipocere — Sat, 03 May 2008 12:09:40 -0800

What I want to know is what's up with that one metronome, the second from the left. It seems to get it, then just breaks off wildly. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? CONFORM! I picture a large assembly line, dedicated to producing exactly the same thing, over again, metronomes without deviation, when into the factory late at night comes some mischievious elf, The Metro Gnome, and he must make it just a little bit ... off. Each one of them goes out into the world and produces a chain of bad drummers and lousy piano students. The Metro Gnome is, of course, white, because that invisible knapsack does not contain rhythm.

By: weapons-grade pandemonium

weapons-grade pandemonium — Sat, 03 May 2008 12:49:21 -0800

These metronomes, they're syncing together?.

By: seawallrunner

seawallrunner — Sat, 03 May 2008 12:56:51 -0800

too bad about the door opening and closing in the background. interesting momentary convergence, then all metronomes continue doing their own thing, in their own beat.

By: TheDonF

TheDonF — Sat, 03 May 2008 12:59:10 -0800

Heh! I purposely didn't put 'together' in my link, it's more than a little redundant.

By: Kattullus

Kattullus — Sat, 03 May 2008 13:16:06 -0800

GuyZero: How has that whitney music box thing never been a FPP! That was awesome. It was posted ages ago by tellurian, who, I might add, is a gentleman and a scholar. The anticipation I experience during the 15 seconds before all the dots cross the line together is intense and the climax extremely satisfying.

By: No-sword

No-sword — Sat, 03 May 2008 16:50:12 -0800

Very pleasing. One can't help but wonder what Beethoven would have been capable given access to four extra metronomes, a plank, and two soda cans.

By: Fuzzy Skinner

Fuzzy Skinner — Sat, 03 May 2008 17:55:19 -0800

Don't forget the striped shirt.

By: inoculatedcities

inoculatedcities — Sat, 03 May 2008 20:16:19 -0800

It's even more fun when phasing is done with instruments. Or Pez dispensers.

By: mattoxic

mattoxic — Sat, 03 May 2008 21:37:05 -0800

There used to be a venue in Brisbane, Australia called Cloudland ballroom. I saw many good bands there, Clash, Echo and the Bunnymen, Midnight Oil, Madness etc etc. The place was built in the 40's and many a US serviceman would date a local girl by taking her to a dance there. It had the largest suspension dance floor in the world, and for genteel ballroom dance style it gave the impression of floating on air. Later in it's life when rock bands played it was like being on the worlds largest trampoline. You would bounce in incredible unison with two or three thousand others. An amazing feeling.

By: mazola

mazola — Sat, 03 May 2008 21:52:16 -0800

THE METRONOMES WANT TO BE FREE!

By: Mikey-San

Mikey-San — Sat, 03 May 2008 22:21:36 -0800

Actually, that was way cooler than I expected. I liked it so much I called my daughter into the room to show her. Her response: "Wow, dad. You're a nerd." "That's right, honey. Now let me tell you about genetics."

By: not_on_display

not_on_display — Sat, 03 May 2008 23:24:20 -0800

Yes. This was great. And so was that dude's belly.

By: russm

russm — Sat, 03 May 2008 23:34:30 -0800

Mikey-San: so, nature over nurture eh? either way, though...

By: odinsdream

odinsdream — Sun, 04 May 2008 07:19:03 -0800

Very nice modern example of Huygen's sympathetic oscillation.

We also find an outcome that Huygens never mentions, in which one or both pendulum motions die out--a state we call ``beating death''. Huygens may not have observed beating death because his clock systems were heavily weighted (a by-product of the maritime design--the weighting was necessary to keep the clocks upright when at sea). Beating death happens less often as the system mass is increased. For a system mass comparable to those of Huygens' studies, we observe only antiphase synchronization.

Mmm.. beating death.

By: fantabulous timewaster

fantabulous timewaster — Sun, 04 May 2008 09:21:06 -0800

This is great! I expect to add this to my collection of physics demonstration toys, right up there with the magnet down the aluminum pipe. Several people have mentioned Huygens' observation of this phenomenon. A couple years ago I read in some report on undergraduate physics research projects about an effort to quantify what sorts of couplings between two pendulum clocks allow this type of synchrony to develop. (Oh! I guess it's this paper, linked to above in this thread. I had seen press, but this is the first time I've read the paper.) While those students successfully got the clocks to sync up, it only happened for a surprisingly narrow range of couplings: for most combinations of mass and springiness for the board(s) connecting the two clocks, the clocks remained independent of each other. So it surprised me how fast the metronomes in these videos synchronize, and how robust it seems to be. Using metronomes offers lots of freedom to explore the parameter space. How close do the frequencies of the two metronomes have to be? What if you want to set up a synced pair where the frequency ratio isn't 1:1, but 1:2 or 2:3 or something else? How much does this depend on the frequency stability of the metronome? (Maybe the Georgia Tech students concluded that Huygens was lucky to have seen his clocks sync up because they used modern clocks with better frequency stability?) Are there other phases possible? There's a lot of physics here. Time to start shopping for old mechanical metronomes.

By: upick

upick — Mon, 05 May 2008 03:20:07 -0800

That's hardcore. Do they all sync up because of the rocking motion by the 2 cans?

By: quin

quin — Mon, 05 May 2008 09:40:07 -0800

I like how long it took number 2 to get on board with the whole syncopation thing. Because in any good band, there will always be a bad boy who will go against the grain. He's the one that the chicks always get all dreamy over, and will get put into all the teen magazines. But at the end of the day, it's all about the music, and he will fight and fight but eventually, he'll finally accede that, for the good of the band, he's gotta play along. Metronome 2 is a bad-ass rebel.

By: oats

oats — Mon, 05 May 2008 11:22:57 -0800

OMG am I the only one who saw the bear walking behind the guy?

By: inigo2

inigo2 — Tue, 06 May 2008 07:34:29 -0800

You would bounce in incredible unison with two or three thousand others. Sounds like the bleachers at RFK Stadium in DC. Pretty neat, if a bit scary.

By: tellurian

tellurian — Sat, 10 May 2008 09:19:21 -0800

Hmm! That's interesting, 53 favorites for this comment, 10 for my post. I wondered where those recent ones were coming from (thanks Kattullus, you're too kind - neither scholar or gentleman, but I thank you for saying so.)