Entrainment : The Universal Law of Harmony

In 1665, a new physics principle called entrainment was discovered by Dutch Physicist and Scientist, Christian Huygens.

He made many well known breakthroughs in the field of physics and astronomy, a few of his more noted being Huygen's Principle of secondary wave fronts, Light-Wave Theory, in-depth research into the rings of Saturn, and the revolutionizing of time-keeping through the creation of pendulum clocks.

One of the experiments that led to the discovery of entrainement was when Huygens set up a room full of pendulum clocks and got them all started one at a time. He found that when he came back to the room a day later, the sway of their pendulums had all synchronized.From this, he extrapolated that entrainment represented the phenomena of synchronization of closely related rhythmic cycles on their interaction with each other to conserve energy.

So the principal behind entrainment is very simple and has universal appeal :

“Any two vibrating bodies will entrain if exposed to each other for long enough”

i.e. they will synchronize if exposed to each other for long enough”.

It’s true of clocks and electric driers sitting in close proximity to each other; it also describes the way musicians manage to play in time together in groups, the way women’s menstrual cycles fall into sync when they live with one another, and the way our body systems interact.

Within our bodies, our various rhythmic systems never fight each other, they always fall into synchronized rhythms, and a lack of synchronization, like in the case of a bad heart valve that is not quite timed to the flow of blood, leads to sickness. It also seems to be the case that these body systems entrain, become synchronized, to the environment, to its oscillating features.

There is overwhelming evidence that circadian rhythms (our biological clock) keep us entrained to the rhythms of the earth relative to the sun (ever wondered why we have those clock changes during the year?), and that various systems within our bodies entrain to repetitive stimulation. Other examples are the way that two people walking next to one another will fall into step with each other, or the way that people clapping in a full room will synchronize their claps given enough time.

And how, again, does all this relate to the music we listen to?

As you explore the information on our site, it should become clear that it’s all connected. We can choose coherence over incoherence.