Is it possible to sound all the church bells across the country at precisely the same time, without one central agent setting the rhythm? Indeed, it is. Future technologies, such as decentralized control mechanisms for motor vehicle traffic or robot swarms, will increasingly come to rely on the ability to function in a similarly synchronous manner. Researchers have now developed a new method of self-organizing synchronization and have delivered mathematical proof of the systems’ guaranteed ability to achieve synchrony under their own power.