Symmetry and the Beautiful Universe

by Leon M. Lederman Nobel Laureate, Christopher T. Hill

When scientists peer through a telescope at the distant stars in outer space or use a particle-accelerator to analyze the smallest components of matter, they discover that the same laws of physics govern the whole universe at all times and all places. Physicists call the eternal, ubiquitous constancy of the laws of physics symmetry. Symmetry is the basic underlying principle that defines the laws of nature and hence controls the universe. This all-important insight is one of the great conceptual breakthroughs in modern physics and is the basis of contemporary efforts to discover a grand unified theory to explain all the laws of physics.Nobel Laureate Leon M. Lederman and physicist Christopher T. Hill explain the supremely elegant concept of symmetry and all its profound ramifications to life on Earth and the universe at large in this eloquent, accessible popular science book. They not only clearly describe concepts normally reserved only for physicists and mathematicians, but they also instill an appreciation for the profound beauty of the universe's inherent design.Central to the story of symmetry is an obscure, unpretentious, but extremely gifted German mathematician named Emmy Noether. Though still little known to the world, she impressed no less a scientist than Albert Einstein, who praised her "penetrating mathematical thinking." In some of her earliest work she proved that the law of the conservation of energy was connected to the idea of symmetry and thus laid the mathematical groundwork for what may be the most important concept of modern physics.Lederman and Hill reveal concepts about the universe, based on Noether's work, that are largely unknown to the public and have wide-reaching implications in connection with the Big Bang, Einstein's theory of relativity, quantum mechanics, and many other areas of physics. Through ingenious analogies and illustrations, they bring these astounding notions to life. This book will open your eyes to a universe you never knew existed.

Genres: Science, Physics, Nonfiction, Mathematics, Popular Science, Stem, Philosophy

379 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 31, 2004

Reviews

[Brian Clegg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although it won’t appeal to everyone, as I will explain in a moment, I think it’s fair to say this is one of most valuable popular science books I have ever read. Symmetry is at the heart of much modern physics, but it is generally concealed under the surface, and when it has to emerge, for example when talking about the standard model of particle physics, every book I have ever read on the subject fails to explain the subject properly. This book doesn’t quite make it, but it is by far the closest I have ever seen to a comprehensible explanation.

Nobel laureate Leon Lederman (the man behind the dreaded ‘God particle’ term) and his usual co-author Christopher Hill pack a huge amount of information into this slim paperback. We begin with an exploration of symmetry itself, bring in the laws of physics, meet Emmy Noether in some detail and specifically her concept that each of the conservation laws corresponds to an underlying symmetry. From there Lederman and Hill bring in classical physics, and particularly inertia, relativity, broken symmetry, quantum physics, local gauge invariance and QED, quarks and QCD, the standard model and the Higgs field. It is a huge achievement just how much of this they get in, and how approachable most of it is with a bit of work.

As that suggests, there is a price to pay for the reader. If you are totally equation averse, you will have problems because there are a lot of them. They are always relatively simple and well explained, but the pages are littered with them (which presents a different problem, as we will discover in a moment). This is a book you will have to work a little bit to read, perhaps occasionally re-reading a section to get the full meaning, but it will be so well worth it.

I just have two issues with the book. Although Lederman and Hill almost make the application of symmetry and gauge theories comprehensible there is one huge gap, where the authors say ‘let’s change something to randomly to have any value as we move through time and space.’ They build the whole explanation of gauge theory on this (this is the first book, by the way, I’ve seen that properly explains where that word ‘gauge’ comes in) – yet as presented it makes no sense. They give no reason why we are asked to choose random values, rather than sticking with a smoothly changing value, or making some other arbitrary decision. Because of this there’s a feeling that your understanding is built on sand.

The other issue is the quality of the physical book itself. I am very careful with books when I read them – paperbacks usually still look brand new with no creases etc. But by the time I had reached the end, half the pages had come away from the spine. I can live with that, but worse still, the book seemed not to have been proof read. Any book has a few typos or small errors that slip through. You can’t spot everything. But page after page there were equations where a character (often the multiply sign, or the Greek letter phi) was replaced with a question mark. It made them much harder to read, the last thing you need with equations in a popular science book. I can’t understand how the publisher or the authors could fail to spot such a glaring error at the proof stage.

Nonetheless an important and hugely informative book on a subject that is at the heart of modern physics but has rarely been comprehensibly explained. Recommended.

Review first published on www.popularscience.co.uk and reproduced with permission.

[Steve Kimmins · Rating 4 out of 5]

A popular science book by a famed physicist, now deceased, which attempts to make some of the more esoteric aspects of fundamental physics comprehensible to the lay reader. A good though not perfect attempt, I think.

I obtained a degree in physics which included some of the topics covered in this book but I barely comprehended the words spoken at me by lecturers about them. As for many topics in the modules we took we were given some explanatory background, then the important equations and the means to manipulate them. This allowed us to pass the exams for each module though I confess to not having a half decent deeper understanding of some subjects, such as Quantum Mechanics, until more recent times!
Then I went into engineering for a career. But I’ve maintained a hobby-like interest in fundamental physics, which means occasionally reading popular books like this.

The author spends a lot of time on Symmetry as an underlying explanation for many areas of physics. This is what attracted me to the book as its new to me and I know it’s the buzz word for those working on the subject. It mostly means invariance in the behaviour of some properties when measured in different circumstances and how this usually leads to a ‘conservation law’ in physics. For example, the fact that fundamentals in physics don’t appear to change with time correlates with conservation of energy; basic properties don’t change with the measurement position, hence conservation of momentum. Etc. The author extends this to more subtle situations involving sub-atomic particles and I think does a reasonable job explaining the role of symmetries have in sub-atomic physics even when that symmetry can be a subtly mathematical one. I did still struggle with his explanation of Gauge field theories though I got what role they play.

Despite this book mainly attempting to explain phenomenon far beyond our routine experience, something all of us will require effort to comprehend, the author also sometimes made strange excursions into much more mundane areas of physics - numerical calculations of the momentum and energies of colliding billiard balls or moving cars, for example. It is hard to understand why the author wanted to present that detail for something often covered in high school/secondary school physics alongside the mind blowing abstractions.

One annoying feature in my hardcover copy (secondhand, as it doesn’t seem to be in print) was the number of typos. Especially using the letter ‘y’ instead of ‘x’ for the multiplication operator, almost everywhere. I got used to it.

All in all I benefitted from this author’s efforts in explaining fundamental physics, as understood by leading practitioners in the subject. It partially restored my recent cynicism about current progress in the field. The concepts outlined are abstractions which everyday language struggles to explain (“quantum chromodynamics”, with abstract colour codes assigned to quarks, to explain their interactions, is as weird as it comes) but it’s the maths behind these abstractions that really does seem to work incredibly accurately. I still can’t believe that the mathematics we invent as a language to model the universe at these basic levels has a deeper reality but it certainly has taken us an amazingly long way. Now we find ourselves waiting for more experimental results before the mathematics can help further, a conclusion the author drew while waiting for the Higgs boson to be discovered.

One particularly noteworthy point is the publicity and high credit the author gives to Emmy Noether, an early 20th century mathematician, with as significant a contribution to this field as anyone, Einstein included, despite being held back in her academic career because of her gender. Also she was another German Jew, like Einstein, who had to escape the Nazi regime though sadly dying soon after the escape.
Four mind blowing stars.

[Sajjad thaier · Rating 4 out of 5]

"
لو فكرنا مليا في ما نحاول نحن البشر أن نفعله, سيتبين لنا أننا نحاول بكل ما أوتينا من جهد - ورغم الضباب الذي يكتنفنا - أن نتوصل إلى رؤية كيفية صياغة التناظرات لأفكارنا ومعادلاتنا, وذلك كي تتجسد قناعتنا بأن سحر هذه التناظرات وجمال إيقاعاتها - وحتى عيوباها - سوف تظهر لنا في النهاية - مع الزوال البطيء للضباب - جمال وأناقة الكون الذي نعيش فيه."
قبل قليل أنهيت قراءة الملحق في نهاية الكتاب, وكان بعنوان :(الزمر التناظرية المستمرة ) وفكرت كيف بحق الجحيم وصلت إلى هنا ؟! قبل قليل كنت أقرء عن الموسيقى والأساطير القديمة . حسنا أنا لا أعرف كيف بالتحديد وصلت إلى هنا لكن بالتاكيد لقد كانت رحلة ممتعة بشكل لا يوصف .
وهذا ملخص سريع لما حدث -تقريبا - :
بدء الكاتبان في المقدمة بالحديث عن التناظر وعن جمال التناظر في الفن والموسيقى. ثم أنتقلت الأحداث الى الحديث عن كوكب الارض والصراع الطويل حول هل تدور حول الشمس والعكس وهكذا ... .ثم أنتقلتَ إلى إيمي نوثر العالمة الرياضية المجهولة التي عززت مفاهيم التناظر في العالم الحديث
*في الفصل الأول تكلم الكاتبان عن تكون الكون والأساطير حول ذلك في الحضارات القديمة. ثم تقدموا في الكلام كيف أن القوانين التي تحكم عالمنا هي نفسها في كل زمان ومكان .
*الفصل الثاني كان تتمة للفصل الأول وحاول أن يعزز مفهوم ثبات قوانين الفيزياء في كل مكان لكنه ركز على الطاقة ومفهوم أنها لا تفنى ولا تستحدث .
* عدنا في الفصل الثالث إلى العالمة المغبونة أيمي نوثر وأسهاماتها في الرياضيات والفيزياء وخصوصا مفهوم التناظر, وكذلك حياتها وأرتقائها في سلم المراتب العلمية .
*تكلم الفصلان الرابع والخامس عن التناظر بشكل مفصل وخصوصا التناظر عبر الزمان والمكان و الحركة والطاقة والمفاهيم الفيزيائية المرتبطة بهذه المفاهيم.
*تناول الفصلان السادس والسابع مفاهيم العطالة والثقل والنسبية لأينشتاين وعلاقتها بالتناظر .
*وفي الفصول الثلاث الاخيرة تناول الكاتبات قوانين الفيزياء التي تحكم الكون وتناظراتها على مستوى عميق جدا . تطرق الكاتبات إلى الجسيمات الدقيقة التي تشكل الكون وعوائلها وكيفية تشكلها وعلاقتها بنا بصورة مباشرة أو غير مباشرة .
----------------------------
أن هذا الكتاب على الرغم من حجمه الكبير نسبياٌ, ألا أنه كتاب ممتع ومسلي ويحوي الكثير من المعلومات عن الفيزياء على عكس أغلب الكتب التي تخاطب غير المتخصصين التي تكرر نفس المواضيع من تشكل الكون والجسيمات الدقيقة الخ . هذا الكتاب يقدم رؤية أبداعية ومحاولة جديدة لفهم هذا الكون وتغيير نظرتنا ألى الكون .
أخيراٌ رغم أن الكتاب لغير المختصين ألا أنه أحتواى مقدار كبير نسبياٌ من الرياضيات والتي تحتاج إلى بعض الدراسة لفهمها . رغم بساطته ألا أنه كتاب موجه للعامة الذين يحبون الفيزياء ويتحملون ثقل الرياضيات لأجل محبوبهم .

[Charles Daney · Rating 5 out of 5]

The senior author of this book, Leon Lederman, who died in 2018, shared a Nobel Prize with two other physicists for their research on neutrinos. He also served as Director of Fermilab, the most powerful high-energy particle physics lab in the U. S., from 1978 to 1989. So Lederman had outstanding expertise in particle physics and the relevant symmetries.

Symmetry is everywhere - in animals and flowers, snowflakes, mineral crystals, many human artifacts such as clocks and calendars, etc. Sometimes the symmetry is perfect (or nearly so), and at other times may be "broken", yet still noticeable. Symmetry is also very much present in physics, and in this case it has quite significant consequences. That's a result of an important theorem conceived and proven by the eminent mathematician Emmy Noether in 1915.

Although Noether did outstanding work in algebra, the theorem that bears her name pertains to physics. It states that any symmetry in physics implies a physical quantity that is "conserved", and conversely, any conserved physical quantity is the result of some symmetry law. The meaning of a physical quantity being "conserved" is that it remains unchanged in the presence of a change in the physical system of which it's a part. This has long been apparent in familiar physical laws, such as conservation of energy, momentum, and angular momentum.

Changes in a system and corresponding symmetries can be either discrete or continuous. Mineral crystals, animals, and flowers, for instance, have discrete symmetry, since there are just finitely many ways in which the object appears to be "the same". There's a very extensive mathematical theory of finite "groups" that describe such symmetries. In physics there are some important discrete symmetries. However, in physics, most important symmetries are continuous, such as positions in time and space. Conservation of energy is a result of the invariance of physical laws under the continuous symmetry of time translation. Conservation of momentum is a result of the invariance of physical laws under the symmetry of space translation. And conservation of angular momentum is a result of the invariance of physical laws under the symmetry of rotation in space.

Energy is conserved in the passage of time (i. e. "time translation") and is never created nor destroyed, although it may change in form, such as when some type of matter is consumed (as in a star or a fire). (Remember: E = mc².) The momentum of something with mass is defined as mass×velocity. It's conserved during uniform translation from one place to another in space. However, it will change if some force causes acceleration or deceleration, i. e. change in velocity due to the force. Similarly, the uniform angular momentum of an object - such as the spin of a baseball, or the motion of a satellite around the Earth - will change only if a force acts tangentially to the direction an object is rotating or revolving. All these symmetries are continuous, since they involve movement in time and/or space.

Einstein's theory of special relativity requires some alterations to the classical laws of conservation of energy, momentum, and angular momentum for motion near the speed of light (which can't change in any way). That's because time itself slows down for anything moving close to the speed of light. At such near-lightspeeds, a simple mathematical rule called a "Lorentz transformation" reveals the actual symmetry.

Some important symmetries in particle physics are discrete. For example, fundamental particles, such as electrons, are entirely identical in their essential properties to every other particle of the same type. In the case of particles (known as "fermions") like electrons that have a "spin" of ±1/2, it's impossible for two such particles to be in the exact same location at the same time, unless they differ in spin. But for particles (known as "bosons") like photons that have a spin of 0 or 1, any number of them can be in the same location at the same time, and they're entirely indistinguishable.

If a particle with spin ±1/2 is reflected in a mirror (metaphorically speaking), its spin will appear to change from + to - or vice versa. This is known as a change in "parity". So reflections are a kind of discrete symmetry that does not conserve parity. In addition to parity (P), there is another discrete symmetry involving the particle's charge (C). Without going into the details, it turns out that the combined CP symmetry can be violated for particle interactions involving the "weak" nuclear force. Time-reversal (T) is a third type of discrete symmetry. For particles like electrons that have anti-particles, such anti-particles are regarded as traveling backwards in time, so T symmetry is violated in such cases. If a particle and its anti-particle interact, both will be annihilated, generally into photons (to conserve spin). There is, however, a theorem that says the combination CPT can never be violated. That is, if all three symmetries change simultaneously, nothing will be different at all.

Any symmetries that can be violated provide examples of "broken" symmetry. This is very common in discrete symmetries of large objects. For example, animals such as mammals mostly have bilateral symmetry across a central plane. And yet when a mammal, such as a human, has just one instance of a particular organ (e. g. heart, liver), the organ is usually on just one side instead of being centrally located. A much different example is the conjectured "perfect" symmetry of the entire universe at time t=0. That system had a state of high energy, like a pencil standing upright on its tip in a gravitational field. Even the slightest disturbance would force the system into a lower energy state, and this is what resulted in an extremely brief period of "inflation", which culminated in the "Big Bang". Almost instantaneously the strong, weak, and electromagnetic forces ceased to be unified, so they became as they are in the universe presently.

There is one more type of symmetry that's important in physics and the theories of the fundamental forces (electromagnetism, weak force, strong force, and gravity). It's known as "gauge symmetry" or "gauge invariance". This is involved anytime measurements of physical properties are made. A good example is the way time is measured. By convention, the Earth is divided into 24 time zones, and clocks in each zone differ in the times they indicate. But despite the differences, time itself proceeds at exactly the same rate regardless of the time zone or what any clock shows if it's keeping time correctly. It should make no difference where an experimental observation is made, as long as one particular gauge is used consistently. This was recognized already in the 1800s when electromagnetism began to be understood and it was recognized that electric charge must be conserved. It turns out that gauge symmetry, via Noether's theorem, accounts for charge conservation. Physicists realize now that gauge symmetry is involved in the conservation laws of all the fundamental forces.

The book under review here, unfortunately, doesn't go into the mathematics of Noether's theorem. But that's because a lot of technical math is required. Some of the math related to symmetry groups is discussed in the Appendix. But, in general, the book does an excellent job of explaining many types of symmetry that occur in physics.

[Huyen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh I'm so annoyed by Lederman that I must trash this book before letting it quietly sneak in my book shelf. Ok, so firstly, I was deceived by the pretty cover (ok, I do judge books by their covers) and secondly, Amazon says Lederman's "the most engaging physicist since the much-missed Feynman." Comparing Lederman with Feynman in terms of wit and idiosyncrasy? Rubbish.
Lederman wrote this book as if he really didn't care about what he was writing (sort of like the person writing this review). My expectation value of the quality of the book
fluctuated in the first 100 pages, then exponentially decayed in the next 100, and where are we? ,Is light a particle or a wave? (ugh), then it dropped down to negative infinity. he jumps from one topic to the next, struggling to find (and often comes up with stupid) analogies for simple principles like conservation of momentum, energy. And then chucks in random stories about some scientific giants who
have little to do with the story flow. The entropy of the book follows closely with the second law of thermodynamics: only goes up. or maybe Lederman wants to use the incomprehensible structure of the book to demonstrate the state of nuclear physics before Gell-Mann: messy, random, and basically no one knows what the heck is going on. and i bet he must crack his brain too hard to be funny. But hah, he manages to make me laugh once when he talks about the husband-wife paradox, when the wife comes back on a spaceship: "when they meet upon her return, indeed he has aged 20 years, and she two weeks. Like wine, however, this did not dampen the enthusiasm, even though it slightly diminished the performance". But that's not very physicsy is it?
honestly, i felt like i wasted time reading the first 200 pages without really learning anything new, and bam when it hits the mostprofound concept of the book, gauge symmetry and SUSY, Lederman seems to just drop dead, jumbling words in a few pages and moved on to a new (but boring) topic. this book stands as empirical evidence that great scientists can write absolutely whacky books.

[سارة ناصر · Rating 4 out of 5]

مدهش كيف استطاع المؤلفان تلخيص أهم النظريات والاكتشافات الفيزيائية في هذا الكتاب بأسلوب بسيط وممتع. التناظر، الانعكاسات، النسبية، ميكانيكا الكم، الجسيمات الأولية وعلاقة الرياضيات بالفيزياء ونظرية الأوتار وغيرها. بعض تفاصيل التجارب لم أفهمها، لكن الكتاب عموما ليس صعبا على غير المختصين -مثلي-.

[Voyt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finally about a woman and her essential contribution.
POSTED BY ME AT AMAZON 2004
With a great pleasure I read about "life and times" of Emmy Noether. It was unknown to me, she and her theorem connecting symmetry and conservation law in physics created foundation for gauge invariance theory. And how important this gauge invariance theory is! It governs all forces in nature, except gravity. Second unknown, yet hugely far-reaching woman was Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin: she laid the foundation of stellar astrophysics fusing astronomy and the world of atoms in her brilliant 1925 PhD thesis "Stellar Atmospheres: A Contribution to the Observational Study of High Temperature in the Reversing Layers of Stars".
Like almost any popular cosmology books, this one contains two sections beautifully wrapped up in a symmetry concept: "global" section about large-time and large distance (classical and relativity physics) and "local" section (short distance, timeless high-energy particle physics).
I have read many books of this type; still, authors managed to deliver and teach me many new unexpected and surprising facts about modern physics. Like just for example: famous equation E=mc^2 is not exactly correct (take photon under consideration), or: nature is in love with complex numbers and reads them with passion (quantum wave value is: a+bi; and take this: "noncommutativity is an astonishing fact about ordinary rotations - and therefore about nature itself". Fascinating! Truly full of innovations were times of Noether (she also worked on abstract algebra) and other great mathematicians: Hilbert, Klein, Minkowski and Godel. Here, I clearly got a concept of Godel's radical theorem of incompleteness that crushed Hilbert's view of mathematics!
Never I have learned so much about the nature of the symmetry, remarkable gauge symmetries and its fields like in this volume (maybe Victor Stenger's "Timeless Reality" is close but not exactly). Reader who pays attention to details will find a few print mistakes: Figure 29 shows "the second order of quantum corrections" (not "the first" as it is printed), and Coulomb's law equations (page 248 and 249) are printed as only inverse low force (though text correctly explains inverse-square relation). Grab this book, no matter how many others you studied in the past. No regrets, I promise! And wait until LHC will start to operate. Importance of these future experiments is greatly emphasized by the authors. Emmy Noether waits too, at the same table with Hilbert and Einstein!

[Rachael · Rating 4 out of 5]

The authors describe the backbone of physics through a variety of symmetries, translational, rotational, continuous time symmetry, symmetries of constant movement, gauge symmetries... all through the lens of Emmy Noether's theorem that for every continuous symmetry there is a conserved property. Translational symmetry, for example, leads to conservation of momentum, that of time to conservation of energy, gauge transformations to that of charge. The book starts out describing Newtonian mechanics in this fashion before moving onto relativity (symmetry for constant velocity frames and one between acceleration and gravity), then onto quantum mechanics, the structure of the atom and the world of the standard model and the rules of color charge. All of this is fairly well tied together through the central thesis of symmetry seeking, and ends by explaining how symmetry breaking is actually necessary for our universe to be as it is. If it weren't for some kind of symemtry breaking between matter and anti-matter, for example, we'd never get the clumpy matter that is necessary for the evolution of life. If it weren't for the higgs mechanism causing symmetry breaking, some particles coupling more strongly to the higgs field than others, particles would not acquire mass. Overall this was an enjoyable read, deeply explaining rules of physics that might appear to otherwise be arbitrary (such as conservation of energy), through a rather simple idea.

[Don Wenzel · Rating 5 out of 5]

In my continuing quest to understand the world of theoretical physics, I found this to be an enlightening book. It provided a new perspective that helped me to better understand things I have read in the past.

[Nirmal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good book to read for a general understanding of how symmetries play a role in physical phenomena. Well written.

[mohab samir · Rating 5 out of 5]

من أجمل الكتب العلمية حيث يربط مواضيع التناظر والثبات فى الكون بشكل رائع وأكثر ما أعجبنى هو أسلوب المؤلف الذى هو أحد العلماء المعروفين فى مجال ال QED .

[Fatimah Alrubeh · Rating 5 out of 5]

يا للمتعة !!

[George Hohbach · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book on symmetry as the universal basic language of nature.

[Geno Schilling · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leon M. Lederman is my favorite technical writer. I love the stuff he writes, though this isn't my favorite book by him, that would be "the God Particle".

[Ameerah · Rating 3 out of 5]

يناقش الكتا أحد أكثر الظواهر العلمية انتشارا في الطبيعة وهي ظاهرة التناظر ،تمتاز مقدمة الكتاب بأسلوب رشيق ومشوق
حيث يعرض ليون وكريستوب أفكارهما في تسلسل واضح يسهل على القارىء البسيط فهم مايريدا قوله
تعود فكرة التناظركمفهوم علمي الى طفولتنا جميعا ، عندما نتأمل قرصي الصدف المتطابقان تماما أو جأوراق الاشجار أوحتنى التناظر الصوتي في نقرات الطبل أو زقزقة العصافير العفوية
كلنا في الحقيقةكما يقول المؤلفان شهود عيان على وجود التناظر في حياتنا
ماهو التناظر
التناظر هو أن تبدو الاقسام المختلفة من جسم كما لو كانت هي نفسها مثل حالة الاذنين ،والعينين ،التناظر هو التعبير عن التكافؤ بين الأشياء
عندما يكون الشيئان هما الشيء نفسه ،وفي الرياضيات يستخدم الرمز الشائع = للدلالة على ذلك وهو تعبير عن التساوي بين الأشياء
وهذه الاشياء قد تكون أجساما مختلفة أو أقساما متباينة من الجسم نفسه
تحدث المؤلفان عن التناظر في مجال مألوف للجميع وهو التناظر في الموسيقى ! نعم الموسيقى وان كانت ليست منالأمور المرئية فكما عرف المؤلفان التناظر هو موجود في كل مكان وخاصة في الفنون وهذا يشمل أحد تجلياتها وهو الموسيقى

[Giselle Odessa · Rating 2 out of 5]

يتناول الكتاب عدة مواضيع اساسية في الفيزياء مثل التناظر و العطالة و النسبية وميكانيكا الكمّ و الكواركات و و يفرد جزءاً كبيراً منه للاحتفاء بالرياضية إيمي نوثر و نظريتها.
الكتاب صعب و هناك اجزاء كثيرة لم افهمها, لا يمكنني ان اعتبره كتاباً جيداً للغير المتخصصين في الفيزياء او للراغبين في كتاب فيزيائي سهل و مبسّط.

[صالح · Rating 3 out of 5]

كتاب جميل حتى تصل إلى فصل ميكانيكا الكم فتدخل في دوامة تعقيد ومعادلة رياضية لا يمكن معها الاستيعاب بدون شروح معمقة وطويلة !

[Ed Terrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Three quarks for Muster Mark". Symmetry is an Alice in Wonderland adventure, jumping down rabbit holes from parsecs and arcseconds, to quark jets and gauge bosons with each onion like layer being more complex and fantastic than the one before. Lederman traces the development of quantum theory from its meager beginnings in the early 19th century to the Large Hadron Collider operating today in CERN. Engagingly written and in plain enough language to make ones inner physicist jump between orbitals. This is a must read especially for those interested in how electromagnetism, quantum chromodynamics, gravity and the weak force of the standard model all hold this place of ours together. Symmetry proves to be key in unlocking the universe and will leave you with a Cheshire Cat grin.
Give a person enough superstring and they will hang themselves.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

Worthwhile pop-level intro on the importance of symmetries in physics. My favorite sections were the initial chapters that outlined Noether's theorem, space-time symmetries, "Gedankenlab", as well as the (lightweight) mathematical appendix explaining symmetry groups. The remainder of the content (encompassing relativity, gauge theories, Feynman diagrams, and quantum mechanics) was also interesting, even if chapters felt mostly disconnected from each other.

Much of the content was presented only at a very high "here's a thing you should know about" level. I don't expect to be an expert after reading a pop level book like this, but I was hoping it'd take a slightly deeper look at some areas where I want to learn more (eg: I still only kinda-sorta understand the notion of what gauge theories actually are, despite a decent number of pages dedicated to talking about them).

[Stijn De graaf · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mixed bag really. While there were parts that were genuinely fascinating, particularly regarding particle physics and the unification of the forces, a lot of the time the link between what was being discussed and the concept of symmetry seemed a little far-fetched. On a positive note, the book required little prior knowledge to understand although I did find that the difficulty level varying quite dramatically in places; the authors would go from a very, very basic look at momentum straight into a rather more complex derivation of general relativity. I was encouraged by the interesting first 100 pages, but by the end, I must admit it was becoming a bit of a drag to finish the thing...

[Eppursimuov3 · Rating 3 out of 5]

What do the laws of nature have in common with music and art? They all obey the mathematical principle of symmetry, according to Nobel Laureate Leon Lederman and theoretical physicist Christopher Hill. Symmetry is a principle underlying much of fundamental physics, and Symmetry and the Beautiful Universe explores this concept in various modern day theories in physics, while attempting to convey a sense of its beauty. It also contains a short biography of a very interesting but relatively unknown female mathematician called Emmy Noether and her work in this field.

[Jason Tenenbaum · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book on the current state of the art of particle physics. Very easy to comprehend. There aren't a lot of mathematical formulas (actually, I thought there could have been a bit more rigorous math outside of the Notes). I really like how the authors stressed the importance of Emmy Noether's contributions to modern quantum theory. She's not a name that enough recognize, but she does belong in the pantheon of Einstein and Newton.

[Rick · Rating 2 out of 5]

All I got from this was what I went in with: symmetry is a powerful intellectual model for understanding the relationship between apparently-different phenomenon, such as electricity (on the one hand) and nuclear binding (on the other.) I read it twice because I really wanted to get it. That helped with my understanding of how inertia can be understood, but really, I had that already. Do I sound disappointed? Yeah.

[Ala'a Almushaikeh · Rating 4 out of 5]

ربط المؤلفان ما بين التناظر الرياضي وما نعرفه عن العالم الفيزيائي، بدءًا من أرسطو وفيثاغورس حتى غاليلو ونيوتن وأينشتاين وصولًا إلى التناظر في العالم الكمومي وما تطمح نظرية الأوتار الفائقة أن تحققه؛ مما منحني فهمًا أفضل وتصورًا أوضح للقوانين الفيزيائية الكلاسيكية والحديثة.
أنصح بقراءته للمهتمين خاصةً بأن معظم الكتاب إنشاء أدبي مما يجعله سهل القراءة.

[Bryan Higgs · Rating 4 out of 5]

The focus of this book is more on physics than on the mathematics of symmetry.
The author is an eminent Nobel Prize winning physicist who really knows what he's talking about, and it's a very good read. Lederman's humor and ego both come through.

Highly recommended!

[Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book for technical readers. The last few chapters are somewhat mathematically oriented and may be harder for high school or freshmen students. If they do then they are highly eligible to enter the field of particle physics and work in the LHC at CERN.

[Damir Antunovic · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very readable book about quantum physics, told through the concept of symmetry. If this was how my high school physics was taught I may be doing something completely different for a living now...

[MaDiha HouRi · Rating 3 out of 5]

ايمي نوثر، الزُمر، الفيزياء والرياضيات

[Lee Churchill · Rating 3 out of 5]

That's science for ya!

[Charlie · Rating 3 out of 5]

book about symmetry and physics