4 ms·

Scientists Discover Exotic New Patterns of Synchronization

83 points by headalgorithm 8y ago

trevyn 8y ago
Sci-hub doesn’t seem to have it, but Google shows the full paper mentions something about simulation. It looks like it’s only 8 oscillators and they actually built a physical implementation — why couldn’t this all have been done in simulation?
- jerf 8y ago
  I think it would be fair to say that the entire purpose here is to determine exactly what it is we would need to understand and do to create an effective simulation. Hard to simulate when you're not sure what the relevant parameters are in the first place. (I say "hard" and not "impossible", because simulations can be a relevant part of working out what those parameters are, but speaking generally, that's something that you can do when you're already 90% of the way there, and it doesn't sound like we necessarily are.)
- sdx23 8y ago
  http://scholar.google.com http://scholar.google.com has the full-text pdf if you put in the title.
  - trevyn 8y ago
    Ah, thanks! PDF link: http://nano.caltech.edu/publications/papers/Matheny-2019-Science.pdf http://nano.caltech.edu/publications/papers/Matheny-2019-Sci... Looks like they did simulate it, and the experimental results differed from the simulation due to number of harmonic terms used: “To obtain quantitative agreement between the phase model (Eq. 3) and the experiment, additional terms in the harmonics of the magnitudes would need to be included in the phase model.” Which I suppose implies that very weak, distant harmonics might play an important role in these patterns. Also an earlier paper from the same group that discusses infeasibility of other approaches: https://authors.library.caltech.edu/81293/1/acs.nanolett.7b02026.pdf https://authors.library.caltech.edu/81293/1/acs.nanolett.7b0...
- yorwba 8y ago
  Sci-Hub does have the Science paper: http://sci-hub.tw/10.1126/science.aav7932 http://sci-hub.tw/10.1126/science.aav7932
pontifier 8y ago
Several years ago at DEFCON the badges had LEDs but also had IR LEDs, as well as an IR sensor. I wanted to write a program to flash the LEDs, but wanted groups of the badges to synchronise their flashes... It was harder than I thought, and I never did come up with an appropriate solution, though I think about it from time to time.
- Avery3R 8y ago
  DC22? iirc those ir LEDs were pretty directional
- ignoramous 8y ago
  May be you hadn't come across https://ncase.me/fireflies https://ncase.me/fireflies If you look at the news.yc discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14452832 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14452832 at least one user had managed to sync LEDs using a similar model.
  - pontifier 8y ago
    Well gee... That probably would have worked... maybe I'll try it again next time I get the chance.
- rhinoceraptor 8y ago
  My favorite was the unwieldy vinyl badge and seeing people try to figure out how to attach it to the lanyard... My friend almost lost his at the John MacAfee party when it fell off the lanyard.
carapace 8y ago
There are awesome videos of ranks of metronomes syncing up. I wonder how synchronization "interacts" with Relativistic non-simultaneity?
- qubex 8y ago
  Relativity (even of the ’easy’ Special variety) can have very peculiar effects on physical systems.... I remember trying to solve for a relativistic pendulum, and it was a seriously intricate situation.
aerialfrog 8y ago
In a Mythbusters episode they set up coupled metronomes. One of the metronomes didnt sync up and the host was annoyed. He may have unwittingly discovered the chimera state https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-c6S6SdkPo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-c6S6SdkPo
dreix 8y ago
I read dentists. ..
damip 8y ago
Here is also a Nature paper about using synchronization phenomena in coupled solid state spintronic nano-oscillators to achieve vowel recognition: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0632-y https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0632-y Arxiv PDF: https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1711/1711.02704.pdf https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1711/1711.02704.pdf
pmayrgundter 8y ago
This bit: "The scientists mapped the different synchronized clusters that can form in a network of oscillators to that network’s symmetries. In this context, symmetries refer to the ways a network’s oscillators can be swapped without changing the network, just as a square can be rotated 90 degrees or reflected horizontally, vertically or diagonally without changing its appearance." ... "The synchronized part is one big synchronized cluster, and the desynchronized part is a bunch of single clusters" Sounds like Chladni/Faraday patterns to me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Chladni#Chladni_figures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Chladni#Chladni_figures The symmetry group might be the network of anti-nodes, which vibrate in common with the shared energy reflecting through the medium. The nodes seem less likely, as that's where the energy waves cancel out, thus providing less kick against the local oscillators to overcome their independent motion.
- nitrogen 8y ago
  I wonder what those would look like if you had multiple oscillators that could move around the plate along the gradient of lowest resistance to their oscillation, sort of like the opposite of the flour. I'm also curious if there's a way of extending (or reducing?) this bulk material resonance to graphs of incompletely interconnected nodes.
AgentME 8y ago
>Roukes, who is a professor of physics, applied physics and biological engineering at Caltech, is most interested in what the ring of NEMs suggests about huge networks like the brain. “This is very, very primordial compared to the complexity of the brain,” he said. “If we already see this explosion in complexity [in a network of 8 NEM oscillators], then it seems feasible to me that a network of 200 billion nodes and 2,000 trillion [connections] would have enough complexity to sustain consciousness.” I wonder if there's a good way to integrate something about oscillation into neural networks.
- 7373737373 8y ago
  "Connectome-specific harmonic waves" maybe: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms10340 https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms10340
- trevyn 8y ago
  You may be interested in György Buzsáki’s “Rhythms of the Brain”: https://www.amazon.com/Rhythms-Brain-Gyorgy-Buzsaki/dp/0199828237 https://www.amazon.com/Rhythms-Brain-Gyorgy-Buzsaki/dp/01998... “...self-emerged oscillatory timing is the brain's fundamental organizer of neuronal information. The small-world-like connectivity of the cerebral cortex allows for global computation on multiple spatial and temporal scales. The perpetual interactions among the multiple network oscillators keep cortical systems in a highly sensitive "metastable" state and provide energy-efficient synchronizing mechanisms via weak links.”

83 points by headalgorithm 8y ago

Sci-hub doesn’t seem to have it, but Google shows the full paper mentions something about simulation. It looks like it’s only 8 oscillators and they actually built a physical implementation — why couldn’t this all have been done in simulation?

jerf 8y ago
I think it would be fair to say that the entire purpose here is to determine exactly what it is we would need to understand and do to create an effective simulation. Hard to simulate when you're not sure what the relevant parameters are in the first place. (I say "hard" and not "impossible", because simulations can be a relevant part of working out what those parameters are, but speaking generally, that's something that you can do when you're already 90% of the way there, and it doesn't sound like we necessarily are.)
sdx23 8y ago
http://scholar.google.com http://scholar.google.com has the full-text pdf if you put in the title.
- trevyn 8y ago
  Ah, thanks! PDF link: http://nano.caltech.edu/publications/papers/Matheny-2019-Science.pdf http://nano.caltech.edu/publications/papers/Matheny-2019-Sci... Looks like they did simulate it, and the experimental results differed from the simulation due to number of harmonic terms used: “To obtain quantitative agreement between the phase model (Eq. 3) and the experiment, additional terms in the harmonics of the magnitudes would need to be included in the phase model.” Which I suppose implies that very weak, distant harmonics might play an important role in these patterns. Also an earlier paper from the same group that discusses infeasibility of other approaches: https://authors.library.caltech.edu/81293/1/acs.nanolett.7b02026.pdf https://authors.library.caltech.edu/81293/1/acs.nanolett.7b0...
yorwba 8y ago
Sci-Hub does have the Science paper: http://sci-hub.tw/10.1126/science.aav7932 http://sci-hub.tw/10.1126/science.aav7932

pontifier 8y ago

Several years ago at DEFCON the badges had LEDs but also had IR LEDs, as well as an IR sensor. I wanted to write a program to flash the LEDs, but wanted groups of the badges to synchronise their flashes... It was harder than I thought, and I never did come up with an appropriate solution, though I think about it from time to time.

Avery3R 8y ago
DC22? iirc those ir LEDs were pretty directional
ignoramous 8y ago
May be you hadn't come across https://ncase.me/fireflies https://ncase.me/fireflies If you look at the news.yc discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14452832 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14452832 at least one user had managed to sync LEDs using a similar model.
- pontifier 8y ago
  Well gee... That probably would have worked... maybe I'll try it again next time I get the chance.
rhinoceraptor 8y ago
My favorite was the unwieldy vinyl badge and seeing people try to figure out how to attach it to the lanyard... My friend almost lost his at the John MacAfee party when it fell off the lanyard.

carapace 8y ago

There are awesome videos of ranks of metronomes syncing up. I wonder how synchronization "interacts" with Relativistic non-simultaneity?

qubex 8y ago
Relativity (even of the ’easy’ Special variety) can have very peculiar effects on physical systems.... I remember trying to solve for a relativistic pendulum, and it was a seriously intricate situation.

aerialfrog 8y ago

In a Mythbusters episode they set up coupled metronomes. One of the metronomes didnt sync up and the host was annoyed. He may have unwittingly discovered the chimera state https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-c6S6SdkPo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-c6S6SdkPo

dreix 8y ago

I read dentists. ..

damip 8y ago

Here is also a Nature paper about using synchronization phenomena in coupled solid state spintronic nano-oscillators to achieve vowel recognition: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0632-y https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0632-y Arxiv PDF: https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1711/1711.02704.pdf https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1711/1711.02704.pdf

pmayrgundter 8y ago

This bit: "The scientists mapped the different synchronized clusters that can form in a network of oscillators to that network’s symmetries. In this context, symmetries refer to the ways a network’s oscillators can be swapped without changing the network, just as a square can be rotated 90 degrees or reflected horizontally, vertically or diagonally without changing its appearance." ... "The synchronized part is one big synchronized cluster, and the desynchronized part is a bunch of single clusters" Sounds like Chladni/Faraday patterns to me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Chladni#Chladni_figures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Chladni#Chladni_figures The symmetry group might be the network of anti-nodes, which vibrate in common with the shared energy reflecting through the medium. The nodes seem less likely, as that's where the energy waves cancel out, thus providing less kick against the local oscillators to overcome their independent motion.

nitrogen 8y ago
I wonder what those would look like if you had multiple oscillators that could move around the plate along the gradient of lowest resistance to their oscillation, sort of like the opposite of the flour. I'm also curious if there's a way of extending (or reducing?) this bulk material resonance to graphs of incompletely interconnected nodes.

AgentME 8y ago

>Roukes, who is a professor of physics, applied physics and biological engineering at Caltech, is most interested in what the ring of NEMs suggests about huge networks like the brain. “This is very, very primordial compared to the complexity of the brain,” he said. “If we already see this explosion in complexity [in a network of 8 NEM oscillators], then it seems feasible to me that a network of 200 billion nodes and 2,000 trillion [connections] would have enough complexity to sustain consciousness.” I wonder if there's a good way to integrate something about oscillation into neural networks.

7373737373 8y ago
"Connectome-specific harmonic waves" maybe: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms10340 https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms10340
trevyn 8y ago
You may be interested in György Buzsáki’s “Rhythms of the Brain”: https://www.amazon.com/Rhythms-Brain-Gyorgy-Buzsaki/dp/0199828237 https://www.amazon.com/Rhythms-Brain-Gyorgy-Buzsaki/dp/01998... “...self-emerged oscillatory timing is the brain's fundamental organizer of neuronal information. The small-world-like connectivity of the cerebral cortex allows for global computation on multiple spatial and temporal scales. The perpetual interactions among the multiple network oscillators keep cortical systems in a highly sensitive "metastable" state and provide energy-efficient synchronizing mechanisms via weak links.”