It in fact works only with certain systems, Brandt added. The much more common situation is the other way around, where “disordered processes destroy spatial and temporal regularity,” he wrote in an email.

Research on the role of disorder in “complex” systems such as coupled oscillators is quite new and poorly understood, the researchers said. But they argued that their model could shed light on real-life processes. 

Brain cells, for example, have been studied as coupled oscillators because of the way they interact. They sometimes appear to display repetitive electrical activity affected by neighboring cells’ activity.

Though it’s a bit of a stretch, the study may help to solve previously unexplained findings, said Babette Dellen, a member of Brandt’s team. Brain cells, she explained, can act in synch in response to a stimulus, but no one knows why. “Maybe the details of neurons [cells] are completely irrelevant,” Wessel remarked. “Maybe it is only a property of oscillators.”

A key similarity between the simulated system and neurons is that they are both “nonlinear,” the researchers said. This means the applied force has no straightforward relationship to the distance moved.

A linear system is like a child being pushed gently on a swing. He’ll move in proportion to how hard you push: push twice as hard, and he’ll go twice as far. But past a certain height, pushing twice as hard won’t double the distance. The system is now nonlinear.

Nearly all complex systems in nature are nonlinear, like the physicists’ model, they explained. So are neurons, which is why “when you hear your favorite music twice as loud you don’t double the pleasure,” Brandt said. 

Previous research had also shown that disorder can create order. But past studies often involved manipulating properties of the system itself, such as changing pendulum length, Brandt added.

What’s new in this study, he said, is that it involves changing externally applied forces. Thus, he argued, the findings might be applicable to the real world, where it would be hard to change things within the system—neurons, for example—but easier to apply external forces. “It will be interesting to see if the mechanism that we have found can actually be put to some use,” Brandt said.