Blog post: swansont: Of Oscillators and Switches

An “oscillator†in this context can mean a wide variety of things: runners on a track, quantum-mechanical systems, fireflies flashing, rhythms in cells. The main thing is that when left alone, oscillators repeat themselves in a predictable way, cycling through the same motions or energy flows or whatever. When they are allowed to interact (runners adjusting their pace to match others, for example), they can fall into sync with each other – assuming the interaction is strong enough.