An O(1) sorting algorithm. (What?!)

Check it out! Here.
Nature sorts stuff in a very efficient way!! :D

More details, and a nice animation to explain how it works.




[From here]

A general application of these ideas has long being used (as my father told me some weeks ago) at least since the 70es, to dry-sort seeds using vibrating plates.
Example here:
''
The functional block of the sorter is an oscillating resonant mechanism powered by a linear vibrating drive. The drive holds the mechanism permanently in resonance. The control unit of the drive enables continuous control of vibration amplitude of the screen box and automatically holds the system in resonance. Vibrating parts of the sorter are attached to the base frame by a set of coil springs, which do not allow the transfer of vibrations into the foundation.
''
Clever stuff ah!? ;)

A nice video of a related (acustic) phenomenon is here.

There are some articles discussing that from inducing vibration in granular materials, we can see the emergence of Archimede's principle: large objects (compared to the size of the grains) will start to float on top of the granular material...
Article1, article2 ... but they are on sale :(