Synchronisation of 5 coupled metronomes done in Lancaster University, Physics Dep, Nonlinear dynamics and medical physics group.
Emails related to this video can be sent to:
a.bahraminasabNOSPAM at gmail dot com.

Some explanation by 'shoonya' which I think is pretty good:

Here you go: metronomes (or "pendula") when on table, oscillate with random phases, since that is how they started and they are "uncoupled" (no energy/information flows from one to other so they do not "know" each other.) When they are all together on the cans, notice that the cans themselves oscillate little, providing coupling/information crossover. which forces "synchronization" in periodic systems (discovered by Huygens in 17th century).

A useful book: "Synchronization: A Universal Concept in Nonlinear Sciences " by Arkady Pikovsky, Michael Rosenblum and Jurgen Kurths.


A scientific article: http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?pro...
My personal homepage:
http://www.lancs.ac.uk/staff/bahramin/index.html

Reference to the original video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=RMVxVbCIPjg (less info)