[NXX]⇒ Descargar Why Beauty Is Truth The History of Symmetry Ian Stewart 9780465082360 Books

Why Beauty Is Truth The History of Symmetry Ian Stewart 9780465082360 Books

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Why Beauty Is Truth The History of Symmetry Ian Stewart 9780465082360 Books

This is a beautiful introduction to the powerful concept of symmetry. It also provides a historical record of the mathematical concepts that led to symmetry.

I have read many books on symmetry and this one provides in my judgment one of the best entry points. Ian Stewart has an engaging style that builds momentum as you go along.

The blue butterfly on the cover is now a very opportune symbol of symmetry. The 2014 Fields Medal (equivalent to the Nobel prize) was given to Artur Avila for his work on nonlinear dynamical systems of which the Lorenz model is prototypical. This model is usually symbolized by a butterfly. In Oriental cultures the butterfly is a symbol of transformation. Symmetry is defined mathematically as invariance under transformations.

Phil Anderson, a Nobel laureate in physics, famously wrote "it is only slightly overstating the case to say that physics is the study of symmetry." If you want to know why and, as importantly, if you want to know how symmetry can be a key concept for the social sciences and even your own life, you should read this book.


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Why Beauty Is Truth The History of Symmetry Ian Stewart 9780465082360 Books Reviews

The author has penned a dozen stories of mathematical discovery joined by the theme of symmetry. The individual stories are good biographies, historically interesting and their mathematical principles accessable to the layman. The links from story to story are plausible. The abstract level of the principles is made clear.

In the end, the beauty of the mathematics or structures discovered is not clear. The deeper commonality of the mathematics escapes the general reader. The connection of symmetry to beauty or truth is not really attempted.

The reader who enjoys the history of math and mathematicians or who seeks some understanding of post-calculus math will enjoy this book, but don't expect to learn the meaning of the universe.
This is an excellent book, although to fully understand it you need some good background in math and physics. It traces 4000 years of research in mathematics and physics, from Babylonic science (to whom we owe the sexagesimal system) to Ed Witten and superstrings. The thread of the story is symmetry, a concept that leads to group theory via the efforts to solve some the antiquity's problems (for example, the duplication of the cube) and the polynomial equations, specially the quintic. Although I am an avid reader of this kind of books I learnt quite a few things and others, although not new to me, I found were very well explained.

Among the first group, the cubic geometric solutions of Persian Omar in the 11th century, the name of Killing (the mathematician who classified simple Lie algebras in one of the most beautiful math papers, according to Stewart), the fact that Liouville rescued Galois papers from oblivion, the relation of octonions to string theory, Hamilton's carving of the fundamental relations of his quaternions in the Broome Bridge, the role of the exceptional Lie groups in physics, Witten's starting career as political journalist, etc.

Among the second the description of gauge symmetries, the comparison between the unity of life and the unity of the fundamental forces, etc.

The reader will enjoy the well known story of how mathematicians were forced to use complex numbers in trying to apply the cubic formula and the fascinating life of Galois who so unhappily was killed in a duel at the age of 21, a duel that he had apparently exactly 50% chance of survival.

Stewart is critical of the anthropic principle, even in its weak form. According to him a sufficient condition should not be confused with a necessary condition and who knows in which exotic forms can complexity emerge. I think that we also should reflect on his suggestion that the search of a Theory of Everything is a residue of our monotheistic culture.

One of the main themes of the book is the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics (a famous article by Wigner has this title) and the ethernal dilemma is mathematics invented or discovered? The exceptional Lie groups seem to be put there by a deity. These are fascinating subjects and no definitive answers can be given.

One little criticism Stewart does not distinguish properly hadrons and leptons and leds the uneducated reader to believe that all particles are either made of quarks or are gluons.
The choice to refrain from equations and diagrams, in principle, lessens the clarity of the generally well told story. Anybody who chooses a book on this subject and is more-or-less able to follow the story of group theory, doubtless has more than a smattering of equations of higher degree and the necessarily longer - not to say verbose - explanations are a hurdle. The addition of some examples of groups and even a matrix or two could be helpful illustrations of the text and, in any case, the reader could skip them.

I have only just started on 'Concepts of Modern Mathematics' and my first impression is a vindication of "one picture is worth many words".

Sincerely,

Avraham Shomroni
This is a beautiful introduction to the powerful concept of symmetry. It also provides a historical record of the mathematical concepts that led to symmetry.

I have read many books on symmetry and this one provides in my judgment one of the best entry points. Ian Stewart has an engaging style that builds momentum as you go along.

The blue butterfly on the cover is now a very opportune symbol of symmetry. The 2014 Fields Medal (equivalent to the Nobel prize) was given to Artur Avila for his work on nonlinear dynamical systems of which the Lorenz model is prototypical. This model is usually symbolized by a butterfly. In Oriental cultures the butterfly is a symbol of transformation. Symmetry is defined mathematically as invariance under transformations.

Phil Anderson, a Nobel laureate in physics, famously wrote "it is only slightly overstating the case to say that physics is the study of symmetry." If you want to know why and, as importantly, if you want to know how symmetry can be a key concept for the social sciences and even your own life, you should read this book.