A "soliton" is a self-reinforcing solitary wave (a wave packet or pulse) that maintains its shape while it travels at constant speed (Wikipedia). Researchers at MIT have discovered that the mathematics describing traffic flow under high densities are quite similar to the fluid dynamics equations that describe solitons.
They have coined the term "jamiton" (jam-soliton) to describe the well known effect that in dense traffic a traffic jam appears for no apparent reason.
Hopefully this breakthrough will lead to knowledge how to prevent these traffic jams.
(Source: Wired)
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