The first comprehensive book on the topic in half a century explores recent symmetry – and symmetry breaking – related discoveries, and discusses the questions and answers they raise in diverse disciplines: particle and high-energy physics, structural chemistry and the biochemistry of proteins, in genetic code study, in brain research, and also in architectural structures, and business decision making, to mention only a few examples.
Inhoudsopgave
Introductory chapters.- Symmetry, invariance, harmony.- Historical Survey.- Symmetry in geometrical decorative art.- The golden section.- Interdisciplinary applications.- Fibonacci numbers in nature.- Perfection and beauty.- The mystery of fivefold symmetry.- From viruses to fullerene molecules.- Symmetry in Inanimate Nature.- Cosmological symmetries.- Sight and Hearing.- Symmetries and symmetry breakings in inanimate nature.- The road from nature to man.- Chirality.- Cerebral asymmetries.- Human Creativity.- Beauty and truth.- Rationality and impression.