Huygens' Clock Puzzle Solved

PhotoGuy writes "Okay, I haven't heard of this puzzle either until now, but it sounds like a fascinating phenomenon. According to this article:Huygens had two clocks side by side and he found that even when they began out of sync, they soon got into a rhythm where the pendulum on one moved as if it were a mirror image of the other.The article is pretty light on the explanation, noting only the conditions required (small relative mass of the pendulums [pendula?], relatively close speed of the clocks), and not really addressing the physics behind it. " There's a great site at Georgia Tech that explains the puzzle in more detail.

Comments

Re:Periods

[sql*kitten]

Harem, because a man could impregnate his entire Harem in a single day since they all became fertile on the same day.

More likely because a harem would be an environment in which many women lived together without much contact with the outside world.

I mean, some of these sheiks were reputed to have dozens of women in their harems. No way he could impregate them all on the same day , at least not with the technology that existed at the time.

Nowadays, for that sort of thing, we have Cowboy Neal...

Re:Periods

[Gannoc]

I mean, some of these sheiks were reputed to have dozens of women in their harems. No way he could impregate them all on the same day , at least not with the technology that existed at the time.

Sounds like a great premise for a Fox reality game show.

In other news...

[Nate Fox]

the decades old question of why Guinness bubbles 'float' down the glass has been solved. Actually took some high end fluid modelling software to figure it out :)
http://articles.thetechmag.com/articles/?0,0372,01 31010,00.html
Also a press release here: http://www.fluent.com/about/news/pr/pr5.htm