The rhythm of coupled metronomes

TL;DR

This study investigates how metronomes placed on a rotating platform spontaneously synchronize their beats, revealing that synchronization depends on beat frequency and number of metronomes, with a realistic model explaining the observed phenomena.

Contribution

The paper combines experimental and simulation approaches to analyze synchronization in coupled metronomes, highlighting the effects of frequency spread and number of metronomes on synchronization.

Findings

Synchronization occurs above a critical beat frequency.

Increasing the number of metronomes decreases synchronization level.

A realistic model reproduces experimental trends.

Abstract

Spontaneous synchronization of an ensemble of metronomes placed on a freely rotating platform is studied experimentally and by computer simulations. A striking in-phase synchronization is observed when the metronomes' beat frequencies are fixed above a critical limit. Increasing the number of metronomes placed on the disk leads to an observable decrease in the level of the emerging synchronization. A realistic model with experimentally determined parameters is considered in order to understand the observed results. The conditions favoring the emergence of synchronization are investigated. It is shown that the experimentally observed trends can be reproduced by assuming a finite spread in the metronomes' natural frequencies. In the limit of large numbers of metronomes, we show that synchronization emerges only above a critical beat frequency value.