To begin to understand what mathematicians and physicists see in the abstract structures of symmetries, let’s start with a familiar shape. We are fond of saying things are symmetric, but what does ...

Receive emails about upcoming NOVA programs and related content, as well as featured reporting about current events through a science lens. Symmetry also has an aesthetic meaning, although this is ...

Reflective symmetry is when a shape can be folded in half, with either side of the fold being a mirror image of the other. Rotational symmetry is when a shape can be rotated and it still looks the ...

Richard Cook receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). Beauty, it is said, is in the eye of the beholder. And yet, there are many faces that a majority would find ...

If you want to fully describe how the Universe works at a fundamental level, you have to look at it in two different — and incompatible — ways. To describe the particles and their electromagnetic and ...