Synergy

Synergy may be defined as two or more things functioning together to produce a result not independently obtainable.

The term synergy comes from the Greek word synergia συνεργία from synergos, συνεργός, meaning “working together“.

Synergy produces a effect greater than the sum of all participating parts

In the natural world, synergistic phenomena are ubiquitous, ranging from physics (for example, the different combinations of quarks that produce protons and neutrons) to chemistry (a popular example is water, a compound of hydrogen and oxygen), to the cooperative interactions among the genes in genomes, the division of labor in bacterial colonies, the synergies of scale in multi-cellular organisms, as well as the many different kinds of synergies produced by socially-organized groups, from honeybee colonies to wolf packs and human societies. Even the tools and technologies that are widespread in the natural world represent important sources of synergistic effects.