Synchrony and the 17-year Cicada

No discussion of the science of social networks would be complete without a study in synchrony. The word "synchrony" happens to be in the paper every day, at least around here. I live in Northern Virginia, where the 17-year Cicada is currently making its appearance in massive numbers. We moved here in 1990, so we weren't here when the cicadas last emerged, back in 1987.

My backyard is home to hundreds of trees, all older than 17 years, whose roots have been the host food for the cicadas who have been instinctively waiting for their glorious appearing. According to the kids, who get to hear them while swinging on the backyard playground, they sound like a chorus of chainsaws. In a few days, they should be even louder as the emergence intensifies.

According to people who research these unique creatures, some cicadas come out all the time, though they are easy pickings for birds and other predators. Obviously, those cicadas fall victim to natural selection, and are eliminated from the landscape.

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center has a writeup about the cicadas, exploring the mathematical and scientific reasons why cicadas pick 13 and 17 year cycles, both prime numbers, in order to reduce the chance for extinction if the different broods happen to emerge at the same time.

Not only do the cicadas demonstrate synchrony, in that they emerge at the same time, they demonstrate rhythmicity, by repeating at a determined time interval. Sometimes we are so amazed at something's synchrony, we miss the miracle of its rhythmicity. Do we notice the fireflies that miraculously blink with synchrony, but miss that they do it every summer evening in the first 30 minutes of dusk? Do we notice that just about all of us sleep and wake at almost the same time every day? Do we notice the beautiful sunset, the full moon, the high tide, or football season, only to miss that they all occur in beautiful rhythmicity?

It just so happens that I'm in the process of reading Steven Strogatz's book, Sync: The Emerging Science of Spontaneous Order. Perhaps its just a mere coincidence that I happen to be reading that particular book at this particular moment, and perhaps its something more.

Why do we mow our lawns in a pattern, or drive the same route to work every day, instead of in some random manner? Is it that we are all instinctively longing for order, perhaps a divine order in our lives?

The Bible says in Romans 8:19-22, "The created world itself can hardly wait for what's coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both the creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens. All around us, we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs." (The Message)

The birth pangs speak of the rhythmicity and synchrony of a "living, breathing" creation as time winds toward a climax. Let's not miss that birth pangs always lead up to the birth of something. I can hardly wait!