Sync Variations

Abstract

Almost every ensemble in nature demonstrates synchronized behavior, from thousands of fireflies blinking, schooling fish swimming as a group, the singing of crickets, and even the synchronization of menstrual cycles of women living in the same household. In physics, synchronization appears from the largest scales such as clusters of galaxies to the smallest scales such as subatomic particles, and from slow-coupled planets to ultrafast-coupled lasers. All these synchronized phenomena require coupling between the different components of the ensemble, and the synchronization depends on the specific parameters of the system. In many cases, it is possible to shift the system from a synchronized state into a chaotic state by changing a single parameter. The transition from a synchronized ensemble to chaotic behavior is not abrupt but rises after splitting the entire system into more and more synchronized clusters. When introducing human nature into a coupled physical system, the situation becomes even more interesting. In some cases, people can behave as simple oscillators and in other cases, they enrich the system thanks to their complicated psychology. This is the main focus of this piece. We demonstrate this unique conflict between synchronization and chaos of an ensemble of people to the audience while investigating new and novel aspects of the interaction within complex human networks. This piece is the outcome of the synchronization between professional violin players in complex human networks with full and accurate control over the network connectivity, coupling strength of each connection, and delay between players. We set 16 isolated electric violin players to repeatedly play a musical phrase. We collect the sound output from each violin and control the input to each player via noise-cancelling headphones. The players cannot see or hear each other apart from what is heard in their headphones. All the players start playing the musical phrase with the help of an external rhythmical beat, to verify that they all start together. The external rhythmical beat is stopped after one cycle of the phrase and the only instruction to the players is to try to synchronize their rhythm to what they hear in their headphones. At this point we establish a chain of connectivity between the players and begin to incorporate delays in the system of communication