Sync: The Emerging Science of Spontaneous Order [Paperback]

 

 

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I am very disappointed since I was looking for good explanations from a real expert on sync. Instead, throughout the book, it reads like a casual chat during a flight with a regular person sitting next to you showing mild interest in what you do. I am sure there is much more underneath the observations, but he quickly moved on to the next fun fact before you can ask why.
With a layman's knowledge of chaos theory and system dynamics, I disagree with most other reviewers about how much you can learn from this extremely shallow book. The content of the book was summed up neatly in the Epilogue: "I hope I've given you a sense of how thrilling it is to be a scientist right now. It feels like the dawn of a new era." (The first sentence, P285.)
Still, I give it two stars since it achieved the purpose stated above. For example, I enjoyed the little story of how Steve accidentally got to know a lonely but brilliant scientist through a book picked up randomly at a book store that carried the title similar to his own unusual paper and eventually worked for him.

Review of Sync: The Emerging Science of Spontaneous Order, by Steven Strogatz

Reviewer: Mark Lamendola, IEEE Senior Member and author of over 3500 articles.

Two thumbs up! This entertaining and informative book is one of the few I would read twice. You know those lists of books you'd want to have if you were stranded on a desert island? Sync made my list.

While Sync is fact-filled, it's far from dry. Throughout the text, Strogatz made me laugh out loud-reminding me very much of the engaging, "can't put it down" writing style used by Bill Bryson (author of Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail and The Lost Continent).

Strogatz takes a complex topic, and explains it in a way that even folks with no innate interest in the topic will find enjoyable. I learned quite a bit about how and why everything from atoms to planets will suddenly act in unison-or not do so. My newly-gained understanding of the relationship between sleep cycles and body temperature cycles has already helped me make some positive changes. Then there's the explanation of traffic....
Not once did Strogatz use an intimidating equation-or any equation at all. Instead, he treats the reader to rich metaphors, analogies, and examples. And instead of dry history on how sync got where it is today, Strogatz shares the frustrations, peculiarities, and human drama of the people behind the developments. Strogatz keeps a pace that is more in line with a Tom Clancy novel than a book focused on a science topic.

The ending made me go back to the beginning-to the dedication, actually. I never cared about dedications, before. However this one really meant something to me after I read Sync. Strogatz dedicated Sync to his departed friend Art Winfree, without whom Strogatz would never have taken his fabulous journey and without whom such a marvelous book would not have been possible.

You have noticed that when you listen to music, sometimes you cannot help tapping your foot or moving in the rhythm of the beat. You may have even noticed that if you are walking with a friend, you tend to walk in step, even if you are not consciously trying to do so. We like linking rhythms, and in doing so we are simply participating in a seemingly universal drive: "The tendency to synchronize is one of the most pervasive drives in the universe, extending from atoms to animals, from people to planets." So writes Steven Strogatz, in _Sync: The Emerging Science of Spontaneous Order_ (Theia / Hyperion). Strogatz is here reporting on a mathematical field in which he is one of the key researchers. There are no equations in the book, and he even invites readers to skip the pages with the most involved explanations. This overview of the field, however, is invaluable. Spontaneous order can be used to explain phenomena as diverse as crickets chirping in unison, fireflies flashing in orchestrated beacon-like displays, the beating of the heart, the united photons of a laser, the constancy of the moon facing us, and the frictionless work of superconductors. It isn't all benevolent; neurons in an epileptic fit are nicely synchronized, too.

Strogatz understands that it is hard to get an intuitive grasp of such ideas. "We're accustomed to thinking in terms of centralized control, the straightforward logic of cause and effect." That isn't the way things work in the many examples cited here. Spontaneous order affects huge systems, interconnected so that each player affects every other player, millions of interactions occurring simultaneously. We carry around in us countless synchronizing oscillators, and Strogatz makes an analogy of the organs in a body being like musicians in an orchestra in producing a unified output. The most famous and well defined cyclic clock in the body is the sinoatrial node, a patch of 10,000 cardiac cells which sends out the electrical pulse synchronizing the cells of the heart to contract together. A mathematical biologist made a model of the network in 1975, and Strogatz himself put the model into a computer. The voltages of the linked cells could all be set to random, and the initial timings could all be off sequence, but quickly a beat developed. "It was spooky. The system was synchronizing itself." But Strogatz cautions against attempts to see patterns when they are not there; the faddish "biorhythm" analyzers never had any scientific verification, and only the shoddy studies have purported to show that crimes and psychiatric admissions follow the phases of the moon.

Strogatz has done a fine job with cheerful writing and apt and sometimes jovially contrived analogies to make his field intelligible to the general reader. An extra attraction is that he shows how scientists within the field have interacted to make the inchoate ideas intelligible. He is quite enthusiastic about the joy of scientific discovery, a personal story he tells to which any reader will respond. For those who have been interested in chaos and complexity, here is a description of a new view of the patterns nature follows at all levels around us.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Universal harmony
Sync investigates the concept of universal harmony. The drive to synchronization is one of the most far-reaching phenomena in the universe, encompassing people, planets, atoms,... Read more

Published on July 20 2006 by Pieter

4.0 out of 5 stars Find out the origin of sync!!!
The craving of nature for synchronization is fundamental. To understand the origin of this basic trait of nature you should also read Eugene Savov's book Theory of Interaction the... Read more

Published on Jun 2 2004

4.0 out of 5 stars My review...
Good book on the subject, the physics part in the middle with super-fluid was difficult when stoned. Read more

Published on May 6 2004 by joelfloyd

5.0 out of 5 stars Considering how cycles are coordinated and humans affected
'Sync' is the emerging science of spontaneous order, studying the elements of synchrony and chaos and complexity theory and considering how cycles are coordinated and humans... Read more

Published on May 3 2004 by Midwest Book Review

5.0 out of 5 stars A New Vocabulary for "Reality"
Exactly what does "the emerging science of spontaneous order" actually explore? Why? So what? These were among the questions in my mind as I began to read this book, one which... Read more

Published on Jan 15 2004 by Robert Morris

5.0 out of 5 stars Enlightening moment by moment
Sync is like a report from the trenches. And you like this report because it's clear, fun, and brings good news. Read more

Published on Dec 16 2003 by Another fine Englishman a few ...

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding book on a fascinating new science
Strogatz's Sync deals with one of the most fascinating new fields of science (not to be confused with synchronicity!). Read more

Published on Dec 9 2003 by world class wreckin cru

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful read
This book thoughtfully describes the emergent behavior of seemingly uncontrolled entities when some form of communication is brought to bear between them. Read more

Published on Nov 12 2003 by lukeo

5.0 out of 5 stars Two Cars and a Bicycle
Anyone with a probing and analytical mind would have to love "Sync", the spell-binding book by Dr. Steven Strogatz. Read more

Published on Oct 27 2003 by Carolyn A. Wilson, M.A. Educ.

5.0 out of 5 stars Everything but the kitchen syncs
As a political scientist studying anarchical networks in international politics, I found this book immensely engaging. Read more

Published on Oct 17 2003 by Paul B. Hartzog

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