Related papers: Symmetries in Physics: Philosophical Reflections

The theory of plasma physics offers a number of nontrivial examples of partial differential equations, which can be successfully treated with symmetry methods. We propose three different examples which may illustrate the reciprocal…

Symmetries are playing a very prominent role in natural sciences. In mathematics as the language of physics, symmetries are treated within the framework of group theory, which provides the tools to classify natural laws and physical objects…

This is the foreword to the book we edited on the origins and early development of supersymmetry, which has been just issued by World Scientific. This book presents a view on the discovery of supersymmetry and pioneering investigations…

Symmetry plays a central role in quantum field theory. Recent developments include symmetries that act on defects and other subsystems, and symmetries that are categorical rather than group-like. These generalized notions of symmetry allow…

Symmetry, in particular gauge symmetry, is a fundamental principle in theoretical physics. It is intimately connected to the geometry of fibre bundles. A refinement to the gauge principle, known as ``spontaneous symmetry breaking'', leads…

This preprint deals with the symmetry of parametrized families of systems and the changes therein as the parameter changes. There are (at least ?) two kinds of symmetry: generic and specific which behave in almost totally opposite ways as…

We propose a generalization of the concept of symmetry as a continuous function of the reference center or line location. We suggest that this concept can be applied to many closed systems and exploring its time evolution. When the function…

Recently, the theory of symmetric spaces has come to play an increased role in the physics of integrable systems and in quantum transport problems. In addition, it provides a classification of random matrix theories. In this paper we give a…

In these lectures, I discuss the role of symmetries in particle physics. I begin by discussing global symmetries and show that they can be realized differently in nature, depending on whether or not the vacuum state is left invariant by the…

This is a short analysis of the changes in the concept of entropy as applied to physics of the present-day and Early Universe. Of special interest is a leading role of such a notion as deformation of a physical theory. The relation to a…

This monograph discusses dualities in physics: what dualities are, their main examples--from quantum mechanics and electrodynamics to statistical mechanics, quantum field theory and string theory--and the philosophical questions they raise.…

Perhaps the most important aspect of symmetry in physics is the idea that a state does not need to have the same symmetries as the theory that describes it. This phenomenon is known as spontaneous symmetry breaking. In these lecture notes,…

The concepts of symmetry and its breakdown are investigated in two different terms according to whether the resulting asymmetry is universal or only obtained for a special configuration: we shall illustrate this by considering in the first…

The concept of complexity appears in virtually all areas of knowledge. Its intuitive meaning shares similarities across fields, but disagreements between its details hinders a general definition, leading to a plethora of proposed…

Symmetry is often treated in philosophy of physics as an interpretive problem. A particularly lively dispute concerns local symmetries: do they indicate surplus structure that ought to be expunged, or are they merely a harmless redundancy?…

Symmetry is one of the most central concepts in physics, and it is no surprise that it has also been widely adopted as an inductive bias for machine-learning models applied to the physical sciences. This is especially true for models…

Symmetry is fundamental to understanding our physical world. An antisymmetry operation switches between two different states of a trait, such as two time-states, position-states, charge-states, spin-states, chemical-species etc. This review…

This article reviews the role of hidden symmetries of dynamics in the study of physical systems, from the basic concepts of symmetries in phase space to the forefront of current research. Such symmetries emerge naturally in the description…

These are intended to be review notes on emergent symmetries, i.e., symmetries which manifest themselves in specific sectors of energy in many systems. The emphasis is on the physical aspects rather than computation methods. We include some…

In the first part of the talk, I give a low-resolution overview of the current state of particle physics - the triumph of the Standard Model and its discontents. I review and re-endorse the remarkably direct and (to me) compelling argument…