Disorder creates order

April 5, 2006 | Source: KurzweilAI

According to a computational study conducted by physicists at Washington University in St. Louis, one may create order by introducing disorder.

While working on their model — a network of interconnected pendulums, or “oscillators” – the researchers noticed that when driven by ordered forces the various pendulums behaved chaotically and swung out of sync like a group of intoxicated synchronized swimmers. This was unexpected –shouldn’t synchronized forces yield synchronized pendulums?

But then came the real surprise: When they introduced disorder — forces were applied at random to each oscillator — the system became ordered and synchronized.

They believe their findings might have potential in understanding the behavior of neurons and other phenomena.

Source: Washington University news release