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Issue No. 10 | 14.04.2008
About Symmetry and Beauty
Eilam Gross
People’s perception of symmetry is usually associated with the notion of perfection, purity and beauty. This leads to the apparently simple equation: symmetry is beautiful, and arouses aesthetic feelings. Does it mean that everything perceived as beautiful must comply with symmetry? A brief insight into the history of art will show that this is not the case. It seems that in many cases more beauty is achieved by breaking the symmetry, rather than by preserving it.
With the Big Bang symmetry has appeared at the universe, but it was broken almost instantly. This break of symmetry probably made the emergence of life, as we know it, possible. Physicists are searching by now particles which might be responsible for the break of symmetry. Many researchers believe that the answer to these questions will be found in the near future, providing, thus, an overall picture of the world.
About the Author
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Prof. Eilam Gross was born in Tel Aviv. After completing his army service in an elite communications unit, he left for New York to study music. There he came across a cult book, The “Tao of Physics”, which prompted him to come back to Israel and study physics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His master's thesis at the Weizmann Institute was written on string theory, after which he "deserted" theoretical work for experimental high-energy physics. During the last 20 years he is spending his time searching for the Higgs particle, the particle which is responsible for generating the mass of the elementary particles. Recently he was appointed to co-convent the ATLAS Statistics forum. He is the father of two daughters, Nuphar (21) and Yaara (17).
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