Nano-Oscillators, Crickets, and Fireflies
Thesis: The power of synchronization, which has been posited by some as the driving force behind order in the universe, can now be harnessed on the nanoscale.
Ever wonder how crickets all chirp at the same time? Or how fireflies can flash on and off in sync? It's a pretty amazing thing when you think about it. An orchestra of intelligent humans requires a conductor to stay in time. In fact, some pieces are impossible without a conductor. So how in the world can groups of fireflies, stretching at times for miles upon miles, with specks for brains organize themselves to blink on and off simultaneously? There is no central conductor, and firefly A clearly cannot communicate with firefly Z three miles down the road, yet this striking phenomenon exists nonetheless.
It turns out that oscillators are the magic behind it all. An oscillator is basically a mechanism that cycles repeatedly in time, and the timing of its cycles can be influenced by outside forces. Imagine, for example, two pendulums attached to the same wall. If you set them swinging at different times they will eventually begin to swing in time. This occurs as the vibrations through the wall push and tug against each other until the two pendulums are gradually brought into sychrony. This is also how crickets chirp in unison. They have a tiny oscillator in their brains that responds to the chirping of other crickets. Fireflies, similarly, have a tiny oscillator in their brain that responds to external light. One of the first researchers in this field released hundreds of them into a dark hotel room. He watched as patches, or networks, of the fireflies slowly synchronized. First, a set of three here, then six over there, then four over there, then suddenly the three back over there assimilated two neighbors into their ranks, and so forth, with one dominant group eventually enveloping the whole into a single flash pattern.
This phenomenon can be seen everywhere. Your heart beats because its cells release pulses in sychrony; heart attacks occur when this rhythmic pulse is ruptured by failed or rogue cells suddenly falling out of pulse. Ever been walking next to somebody and you notice that you seem to be walking in step? This can happen on an even larger scale with groups of runners. The synchronization of women's periods have also been attributed to oscillators. Sleeping patterns, brain activity, interplanetary motions, quantum forces, financial markets, and human networks are a few of the areas to which this phenomenon has been ascribed as a major force. In fact, Steven Strogatz, a leading authority on the subject and the first to provide a mathematical proof that oscillators will always achieve synchrony under certain conditions, has written a book arguing that this may well be the mysterious force behind order in the universe, including life. He suggests that all "order from chaos" occurs through this process.
Now we have finally tapped into this phenomenon on the nano scale. Nano-oscillators have the potential to provide wireless broadcasting (cellular technology relies on this process) on the nano and micro scale. The oscillators can generate powerful signals with a relatively small set of particles. The applications of this discovery remain to be seen, but it is an exciting development nonetheless. You can read more about it in this ScienceDaily article.
Ever wonder how crickets all chirp at the same time? Or how fireflies can flash on and off in sync? It's a pretty amazing thing when you think about it. An orchestra of intelligent humans requires a conductor to stay in time. In fact, some pieces are impossible without a conductor. So how in the world can groups of fireflies, stretching at times for miles upon miles, with specks for brains organize themselves to blink on and off simultaneously? There is no central conductor, and firefly A clearly cannot communicate with firefly Z three miles down the road, yet this striking phenomenon exists nonetheless.
It turns out that oscillators are the magic behind it all. An oscillator is basically a mechanism that cycles repeatedly in time, and the timing of its cycles can be influenced by outside forces. Imagine, for example, two pendulums attached to the same wall. If you set them swinging at different times they will eventually begin to swing in time. This occurs as the vibrations through the wall push and tug against each other until the two pendulums are gradually brought into sychrony. This is also how crickets chirp in unison. They have a tiny oscillator in their brains that responds to the chirping of other crickets. Fireflies, similarly, have a tiny oscillator in their brain that responds to external light. One of the first researchers in this field released hundreds of them into a dark hotel room. He watched as patches, or networks, of the fireflies slowly synchronized. First, a set of three here, then six over there, then four over there, then suddenly the three back over there assimilated two neighbors into their ranks, and so forth, with one dominant group eventually enveloping the whole into a single flash pattern.
This phenomenon can be seen everywhere. Your heart beats because its cells release pulses in sychrony; heart attacks occur when this rhythmic pulse is ruptured by failed or rogue cells suddenly falling out of pulse. Ever been walking next to somebody and you notice that you seem to be walking in step? This can happen on an even larger scale with groups of runners. The synchronization of women's periods have also been attributed to oscillators. Sleeping patterns, brain activity, interplanetary motions, quantum forces, financial markets, and human networks are a few of the areas to which this phenomenon has been ascribed as a major force. In fact, Steven Strogatz, a leading authority on the subject and the first to provide a mathematical proof that oscillators will always achieve synchrony under certain conditions, has written a book arguing that this may well be the mysterious force behind order in the universe, including life. He suggests that all "order from chaos" occurs through this process.
Now we have finally tapped into this phenomenon on the nano scale. Nano-oscillators have the potential to provide wireless broadcasting (cellular technology relies on this process) on the nano and micro scale. The oscillators can generate powerful signals with a relatively small set of particles. The applications of this discovery remain to be seen, but it is an exciting development nonetheless. You can read more about it in this ScienceDaily article.
posted by Clayton at 1:39 AM
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