越來越相似，我說的是掛鐘啦！

The 350-year-old mystery of why pendulum clocks hanging from the same wall synchronize over time may finally be solved, scientists say.

350年前，擺鐘的鐘擺逐漸同步的現(xiàn)象被第一次觀察到，而直到今天這個(gè)謎團(tuán)才終于被解開。

In 1665, Dutch physicist Christiaan Huygens, inventor of the pendulum clock, was lying in bed with a minor illness and watching two of his clocks hanging on a wall, said Henrique Oliveira, a mathematician at the University of Lisbon and co-author of a new study detailing the findings. Huygens noticed something odd: No matter how the pendulums on these clocks began, within about a half-hour, they ended up swinging in exactly the opposite direction from each other.

1665年，荷蘭物理學(xué)家，也是擺鐘的發(fā)明人克里斯蒂安·惠更斯正生著小病躺在床上，看著自家墻上的兩個(gè)掛鐘咔嗒咔嗒響。這時(shí)惠更斯發(fā)現(xiàn)了一件了不得的事!——不論兩個(gè)掛鐘的鐘擺如何開始擺動(dòng)，只要給它們半個(gè)小時(shí)，鐘擺最終都會(huì)以相同的頻率，相反的方向擺動(dòng)。

The cause of this effect — what Huygens called an "odd kind of sympathy" — remained a mystery for centuries. But recently, scientists analyzing two pendulum clocks hanging from the same beam found that the clocks could influence each other through small forces exerted on the supporting beam. However, "nobody tested properly the idea of clocks hanging on the same wall," Oliveira told Live Science.

這個(gè)奇怪的效應(yīng)自被發(fā)現(xiàn)起就成了一個(gè)謎。三百多年后的最近，終于有科學(xué)家認(rèn)真研究了這個(gè)現(xiàn)象?？茖W(xué)家們將兩個(gè)掛鐘掛在同一根梁上，發(fā)現(xiàn)兩個(gè)掛鐘分別向這根橫梁施加著微小的力來影響另一個(gè)鐘。來自葡萄牙里斯本大學(xué)的數(shù)學(xué)家 Henrique Oliveira，也是本研究論文主要作者說雖然橫梁上的實(shí)驗(yàn)被完成了，但還沒有人研究過“同一面墻上的兩個(gè)掛鐘”這種情形。

In conversations over coffee, Oliveira andstudy co-author Luís Melo, a physicist at the University of Lisbon, decided to analyze how two pendulums might interact through an immobile wall, instead of investigating how they might interactthrough a movable beam as had been done in previous research.

在一次喝著咖啡的小憩中，Henrique Oliveira 與身為物理學(xué)家的同事 Luis Melo 決定分析在一堵固定墻體上的兩臺(tái)掛鐘會(huì)不會(huì)相互影響。

The researchers calculated that, as pendulums move back and forth, sound pulses could travel through the wall from clock to clock. These pulses can interfere with the swings of the pendulums, eventually causing them to synchronize.

通過計(jì)算他們發(fā)現(xiàn)，當(dāng)兩個(gè)鐘擺分別左右擺動(dòng)時(shí)，脈沖聲波可以通過墻體傳播到另一個(gè)鐘上。這些脈沖聲波能夠干擾鐘擺的擺動(dòng)，最終使兩個(gè)鐘擺同步。

The investigators tested their idea with experiments involving two pendulum clocks attached to an aluminum rail fixed to a wall. Their results showed that changes in the speed of the pendulum swings coincided with cycles of those sound pulses.

接著二人為了驗(yàn)證這個(gè)想法，在墻上固定了一條鋁制軌道，再掛上倆掛鐘。結(jié)果顯示，鐘擺速度的變化與脈沖聲波的周期相一致。

In addition, they plan to expand their model to explain the behavior of other kinds of oscillators, such as the electronic oscillators used to synchronize activity on microchips, Melo said.

除了掛鐘，這對(duì)科學(xué)家決意將研究范圍擴(kuò)展到更多類型的振蕩器上，比如用于同步微芯片活動(dòng)的電子振蕩器。