Including Index.

Illustrations by Margaret Nelson

'Sync' is a story of a dazzling kind of order in the universe, the harmony that comes from cycles in sync. The tendency to synchronize is one of the most far-reaching drives in all of nature. It extends from people to planets, from animals to atoms. In 'sync' professor steven strogatz considers a range of applications - human sleep and circadian rhythms, menstrual synchrony, insect outbreaks, superconductors, lasers, secret codes, heart arrhythmias, and fads - connecting all through an exploration of the same mathematical theme: self- organisation, or the spontaneous emergence of order out of chaos. Focused enough to present a coherent world unto themselves, strogatz's chosen topics touch on several of the hottest directions in contemporary science.