In this video I show how I made a self-organisating network of Kuramoto-style oscillators in a system undergoing metaheuristic-guided synchronization. There are also ways to visually demonstrate this with relatively simple hardware, such as using modified microelectronics, controlled using microcontroller circuits.

In this project, which I have dubbed “Feynman’s Quantum Fireflies” I program individual systems of oscillators which display discontinuous pas coupling which can be implemented in a network of transceiver circuits. Using the Path Integral Approach is one way to understand how the system behaves like a quantum thermal bath.

This example is a self-organising network of flashing optical transceiver circuits, each circuit containing and RGB LED and phototransistor.

Each circuit is programmed under a simple principle of discontinuous pas-coupling as discussed before to achieve synchronization but this results in behavior across the entire network space that is a collective emergent behavior that has not been explicitly programmed, it emerges as a discrete simulation of a pseudo-quantum system.

This emergent behavior of the network is in fact a visual demonstration of how the network regulates itself over time to the most energy efficient configuration possible, which is to the state of most uniform synchronisation.

We can understand this synchronized state as being the ground state of our whole system, which the set of oscillators wants to head towards.