
The sympathy of two pendulum clocks: beyond Huygens’ observations - hollander
http://www.nature.com/articles/srep23580
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hollander
In an era when science relied heavily on observation, experimentation, and
reflection, the Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens made a serendipitous
discovery: two of his recently invented pendulum clocks—which were hanging
from a common wooden beam placed at the top of two chairs—were showing an ‘odd
sympathy’. Namely, the pendula of the clocks were oscillating in perfect
consonance but in opposite directions, i.e. the clocks were synchronized in
anti-phase. He reported this odd phenomenon first to R. F. de Sluse, on
February 22, 1665 and two days later to his father and to a member of the
Royal Society of London.

...

In the last years, Huygens’ synchronization has become a relevant topic among
scientists and researchers. By designing novel experimental platforms and/or
by conducting theoretical analyzes, further understanding about the exciting
phenomenon described by Huygens has been obtained. In particular, the
aforementioned studies somehow convey the same message: the key element in
Huygens’ setup of pendulum clocks is the coupling structure and its mechanical
properties.

Nevertheless, Huygens’ synchronization is still an open problem. This claim
may be surprising, specially if one considers the fact that the behavior
associated to pairs of coupled oscillators has been extensively and
exhaustively studied and nowadays, the focus is not on pairs of oscillators
but rather in networks of oscillators.

...

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brudgers
English Translation of _Horologium Oscillatorium_ :
[http://www.17centurymaths.com/contents/huygenscontents.html](http://www.17centurymaths.com/contents/huygenscontents.html)

I think I've been under appreciating Huygens:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christiaan_Huygens](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christiaan_Huygens)

