-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
The 32 metronomes are started out-of-sync and after a couple of minutes they are synchronized. One metronome takes a little longer than the others. What’s going on? Answer below the fold.
The answer is provided by Julianne Dalcanton:
The key is that the metronomes are not on a solid table, but instead are on a slightly flexible platform hanging from a string. Thus, as a metronome’s pendulum rod changes direction, it imparts a small force to the platform, which leads to small motions in the platform. The moving platform then gives small nudges back to the metronomes. These forces will tend to push the other metronomes to speed up or slow down to match the timing of the original metronome, bringing the metronomes “in phase”.
Here’s another:
Nal,
There’s out of tune and then there’s out of tempo … 😉
Malisha, Gaelic is a difficult language to both read and speak. You may notice the words have a way of flowing together without pausing between words. It is a language of both poets and warriors. Here is Amazing Grace, the most famous hymn ever, in Scots Gaelic. Below the video, you will find the Gaelic lyrics and can read along with the song. Karen Matheson, the beautiful woman in the first video above is the singer. Enjoy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abIYADJQ0pY
OS, wow, thanks for that music. The language sounds like the most difficult language in the world!
pete9999,
Me too, aa I noted above wondering if he were not the leader, not a reactionary rebel.
Bu you have over time here shown your right to that 180-degree position best to my mind.
i felt something of a kinship with the one metronome that stayed 180 degrees out of step with the others for so long.
Here is Mary Ann Kennedy with another one. These songs were recorded at the famous Highland Sessions a few years ago.
In Scotland the rhythmic work songs are called “waulking” songs. They are sung by the women at work tables as they work newly woven cloth so it will be soft an pliable. This process is called waulking the cloth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waulking_song
Being a guy who loves beautiful Scottish women, I prefer Karen Matheson any day to a Ghana postal worker. The language is Scots Gaelic.
BettyKath:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=por5SopwHDc&NR=1
or this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dw47fZLpSw
I first heard the Ghana Post Office drumming (to keep the work pleasant and to get all on board to synchronize to each other and cooperate with the work) from a CD that was tucked into one of my kid’s college books when he took a course in African Drumming and Dance. It had started with the stamping and then all sorts of other office sounds synchronized in. These were the approximations I could find on the web today.
lol@HenMan
The black guys playing dominoes in the television room, and they wouldn’t shut up.
I thought it was because they were German metronomes. Or is that just a stereotype?
How popular is the saying “do a (whatever)” in the USA?
An old one here is do a poodle, which a politician does when he flops ´down afer admitting a mistake.
Then “Do a Reepalu”, after our anti-semite mayor of Malmö.
Now we have “Do an IKEA” now up for testing sticking power.
Do not judge by outward appearance. Harmony may be in front of you, and you will not know it. There was an internal harmony that was not seem right away. People jump to conclusions. Accusations, and persecutions result.
Here is a syncronized 3-D printer in action … it can print almost anything:
Victoria Treder,
Watch out! See all the lovesick guys gathering. Feeling “in”? You are soon surrounded.
Watch out for lady attacks. Quick, show them your grandkids photos, if you have any…-.grandkids.
When there are libertarians running around, I feel like Trayvon Martin with George Zimmerman in pursuit.
Eddie Slovak,
What’s the difference between Heinlein and Ayn Rand, please? We got one of her followers here, a nice guy but……
“In Sweden, you may not be outstanding, even if people like it or it does not cost more. Instead of letting the outstanding person teach others, they are forced by bureaucrats to under-perform.
Don’t spur by example, you might make them depressed. Is this so in your town?
Lunch lady slammed for food that is ‘too good’”
Reminds me of a Heinlein quote:
“How anybody expects a man to stay in business with every two-bit wowser in the country claiming a veto over what we can say and can’t say and what we can show and what we can’t show — it’s enough to make you throw up. The whole principle is wrong; it’s like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can’t eat steak.” — Robert Heinlein
How much misery has been caused in the world because “we got a complaint”?
The world is full of two-bit wowsers who need someone to give them a great big wedgie. Sometimes playground justice is the best.
Much more interesting than syncrhonized swimming/diving.