Meetrines

Meetrines are a hypothetical class of signaling agents proposed in theoretical models of distributed sensing and metrology networks. In these models, meetrines are molecules or signal carriers that diffuse through a medium, creating concentration gradients that encode spatial or temporal information. The concept is used to explore how autonomous nodes could coordinate calibration, timing, and synchronization without centralized control. It is not an established chemical family; no experimental consensus supports their real-world existence.

A node experiencing an event releases meetrine at a rate proportional to event strength. Other nodes sense ambient meetrine concentration and translate it into outputs such as adjusted thresholds or timing signals. Diffusion and degradation establish transient gradients that propagate information while limiting interference. In simplified models, different meetrine types or concentration patterns can be interpreted as different metrology readings (distance, accumulation, rate).

Key design parameters include diffusion coefficient, degradation rate, receptor specificity, and susceptibility to background signals. Theoretical variants consider enzymatic breakdown, receptor multiplexing, and feedback loops to improve robustness. Practical realizations are proposed mainly in synthetic biology, microfluidics, or swarm robotics, where physical diffusion can be approximated or replaced by engineered transport.

Meetrines emerged in discussions of distributed metrology and bio-inspired sensing during the late 20th and early 21st centuries, often in speculative or pedagogical contexts. They are sometimes referenced in science fiction as a device for ambient calibration or collective cognition but have not been demonstrated experimentally in real systems.

See also quorum sensing, morphogens, diffusive signaling, metrology, distributed sensing, swarm robotics.