Metro Gnomes dance in step
Yesterday a colleague (Pete) shared a link with me on facebook - discordant metronomes. I don't think I would have expected this to happen since I would have thought that for the metronomes to get into phase they would have to be slightly different frequencies, like a sort of beat effect. What seems to happen is the metronmomes stop momentarily then when they get going again they are in phase.(I just watched the video again and see that this does not seem to be the case) I tried to reproduce this in interactive physics but it didn't work. There is no friction between the two surfaces in the animation so the oscillations are transferred from one to the other. I tried with more pendulums and experimented with phase difference but never got them to synchronise, even after watching for about 15 minutes. By the way, the ones in this animation are in a loop so don't bother waiting, they will never come into phase. I wonder if it's because the metronomes are forced and the pedulums are free? Could be a good topic for the new IA investigations.
Next week I start my "upskilling" for the new syllabus with an online course for all workshop leaders. Not sure what the level of secrecy is going to be but will hopefully be able to supply some information soon.