But it has also been observed since the early 2000s that these networks, even when consisting of identical oscillators, can spontaneously flip out of sync and evolve into complex patterns. To better understand what is going on, Roukes and colleagues began to develop networks of oscillating nanomechanical devices. They started by just connecting two, and now, in the new study, have developed an interconnected system of eight. To the team’s surprise, the eight-node system spontaneously evolved into various exotic, complex states. “This is the first experimental demonstration that these many distinct, complex states can occur in the same simple system,” says co-author James Crutchfield, a visiting associate in physics at Caltech and a professor of physics at UC Davis. - neurosciencenews.com