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ITHACA — Cornell scientist Steven Strogatz has found that beings that cannot think, or are not even alive, can synchronize their behavior.
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Steven Strogatz, a professor of applied mathematics at Cornell University, wrote a book titled 'Sync: The Emerging Science of Spontaneous Order' that order in nature is inevitable.
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A mathematician by trade, Strogatz happened upon the theory of synchrony while browsing in a Cambridge, England, bookstore more than 20 years ago. His recently published book, "Sync: The Emerging Science of Spont-aneous Order," illuminates his findings over time, using examples that range from fireflies to neurons to traffic jams to laser beams.
Well-known examples of synchrony like schools of fish swimming in unison are just the beginning of communication and order in nature, Strogatz said.
"Every possible way nature can communicate, it has," he said.
Fireflies appear to synchronize their blinking through the use of sight, he said. Crickets use sound. The Earth and its moon use gravity. Sperm can feel the pressure of each other's tails motioning in fluid. Lasers work by organizing the particles that make up light -- the same light that, unorganized, is emitted by a lightbulb. And in a surprising example, women unconsciously use a still-unknown chemical in sweat to synchronize their menstrual periods.
"Many examples in synchrony have this flavor, that they were urban legends for a while," he said.
Male scientists did not believe that menstrual periods adjusted themselves to occur closer together until a Wellesley undergraduate clea-rly documented the phenomenon, he said.
Later, a female biologist proved the theory by applying one woman's sweat to the skin of other women in another city who had never met her before. Those women's periods moved closer to those of the first woman, Strogatz said.
Strogatz said he tuned into the science of synchrony when he happened upon"The Geometry of Biological Time" by Art Winfree in a bookstore. A 1965 Cornell graduate, Winfree asserted that these rhythms existed in nature and that if they fell apart, the consequences could be disastrous. Strogatz had not heard of Winfree at that time, but was intrigued enough to write to him.
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