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Synergy has origins as a theological term describing the cooperation of human effort with divine will. But since the 1990s it has become a common business buzzword. In the workplace, it has a negative connotation. See also gestalt.
Synergy has also been described as:
If more than one depressant drug is used (e.g. alcohol and Valium), the combination can cause a much greater reaction than simply the sum of the effects of each drug. In this particular case, the most serious consequence of drug synergy is the exaggerated respiratory depression that is fatal when left untreated.
In a biological host organism population, the introduction of parasite A may cause 10% fatalities of the individuals, and parasite B may also cause 10% loss. When both parasites are present, the losses are observed to be significantly greater than the expected 20%, and it is said that the parasites in combination have a synergistic effect. An example is beekeeping in North America where three foreign parasites of the honeybee, acarine mite, tracheal mite and the small hive beetle, all were introduced within a short period of time.
During the registration of pesticides in the USThe United States of America also referred to as the United States U. America ¹ or the States is a federal republic in central North America, stretching from the Atlantic in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west. It shares land borders with Canada in exhaustive tests are performed to discern health effects on humans at various levels. A regulatory upper limit of presence in foods is then placed on this pesticide. As long as residues in the food stay below this regulatory level, health effects are undiscernable and the food is considered safe to consume.
However in normal agricultural practice it is rare to use only a single pesticide. During the production of a crop five or six different materials may be used. Each of them has had determined a regulatory level at which they would be considered individually safe.
Yet, since they have not ever been tested in combination, no data has ever been produced to show whether there is or is not a synergistic effect of the various combinations that humans consume. Some groups think that the rising rates of cancer, asthma and other health problems may be caused by this; others have other explanations. This question will likely be answered only after years of exposure by the population in general.
Person A alone is too short to reach an apple on a tree and person B is too short as well. Once person B sits on the shoulders of person A, they are more than tall enough to reach the apple. In this example, the synergy would be one apple.
Another case would be two politicians. If each is able to gather one million votes on their own, but together they were able to appeal to 2.5 million voters, their synergy would have produced 500,000 votes.