The Surprising Secret of Synchronization

Don't you just love it when you're just about to go to sleep, then you accidentally discover a new scientific phenomenon

This channel is what the Discovery Channel was like to me when I was a child. I love how it brings life to "uninteresting" subjects.

I am a theoretical physicist, have thought about synchronization (resonance) for many years, and still I learned from this presentation. Thank you.

I am 75 years old and an engineer. Physics has been my favourite subject. We see physics all around us but most people do not observe and analyze. This video explained synchronisation so beautifully. I salute the makers of this video. Just loved it. 🙏

Whenever a lot of people are having a chat to the point where the room was so noisy and then suddenly everyone just stop talking to complete silence is someting that is mesmerising and scares me. It's like they/we unknowingly agree to stop talking at the same time

this reminds me of a phenomenon that sometimes a noisy class would simultaneously stop talking. In the short sudden silence everyone is like 'WTF', and finds out that it was a false alarm—the teacher hasn't come yet, and continues chattering.

I went to a recording for a German TV show yesterday and I really enjoyed the sensation of when we, the audience, were clapping. We were in a circus and arranged around one circle in the middle, so I could look at people face to face, to the other side of the middle. (the show is called "Stars in der Manege" in case any German speaking person reading this wants to see it) When music was playing we started clapping in sync, a room of over a thousand people syncronized without any instruction to do so. It happened at different paces each time, some times the irregular phase lasted longer and others we almost syncronized right away. When we were in sync I loved looking around at a random person and no matter where my gaze went, I was in perfect sync with that person. funny how this video showed up on my feed one day later

10:02 I don’t think I’ll ever see this clip and not get chills, the way all these strangers just happened to all be swayed by one another to then combine into something much louder and greater is just amazing

In Hungary, members of the audience purposely sync up the clapping to honor a great performance. We call it the "iron clap". After a while, it disintegrates into just random normal applause, but people will again try to sync up. It's fun and the performers love it.

7:40 "if your friend is sympathetic enough " The guy who runs fast : "On your left ! "

What's interesting to me is that this "Go with the flow" sync applies not just to living things. And the beauty of how despite how chaotical the world is, it's still so orderly.

Derek, I know we’ve worked together in the past so our relationship has been mostly professional, but honestly, I REALLY love your content and the outlook you give to the topics you touch. You and your team are amazing!

This is how you make school interesting again. Videos like these SHOULD be the norm in our high schools.

There are nearly 7,500 comments so I can't imagine you'll see this, but something you might be interested in is that human hearts and breath will synchronize if two people with a close connection sit near each other and look at each other in the eyes for several minutes, or hold hands. The same happens if two people watch certain kinds of movies or listen to certain kinds of music together. It sounds very woo woo but it's true, there have been legit experiments and they will sync up, every time. Little is known about this kind of synchronization but it'd be cool to learn more about it.

I just realized I’ve experienced synchronization with clapping. My high school did a thing at lunch where one table would start randomly clapping and others would join in until the entire lunch room was clapping. One time it got a lot louder suddenly and I figured it was just my weird hearing but I think it was synchronicity especially because we had strong coupling. My school had a bunch of groups strongly opposing each other (mostly divided by political views) but one thing that could bring all the people together was the clapping, even the most reserved groups would get in on it. Some teachers hated it cause the noise and others liked it because it was nice seeing all the students doing something collaboratively

I used to practice jumping into lock step say, with my dad or someone I was walking and talking with. Walking while holding hands, I found, is another way of being in synchrony! It's a lot like drumming in a big circle and locking up with a synchronous rhythm with everyone else. It is amazing to experience the sudden coalescence and to even introduce a new movement and feel the effect it has on the whole group.

As a child I did observe that randomly people in group start walking in synchronization but could never reason it. This video was amazing tbh!

I'm from Russia and I watch your videos, but I watch your videos from another channel that does Russian voice acting. But I still go to your channel looking for the right video and put a like. It was you who instilled in me a love for physics and I would like to say a huge thank you! You probably won't even read this comment, but I still want to write it. Thanks!

This video was SO GOOD. Absolutely loved hearing Pr. Strogatz talk, what an incredible final thought he shared.

As a kid, I remember hearing this noise in the middle of the night. First time i heard it, it scared the life out of me! It was loud and scary, sounded like a bear’s breath echoing through the house. But after many nights of wondering what it was, i finally discovered it was my mom and sister snoring in sync with one another. Back and forth, after hours it would eventually echo through the whole house and i swear it was something i wish i could record because it sounds impossible when i try to tell people