Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

This book grew out of a short series of lectures on symmetry, aimed at a general scientific audience, given by the author at the Catholic University of Leuven, in October 1989. Using only elementary mathematics, the subtle relation between physical objects, models, and icons is discussed and some of the so-called `symmetry paradoxes' are explained. Each of the three chapters uses a case-study to show the development, through both historical and physical ideas, of some of the major concepts of symmetry. The concept and importance of an icon are strongly illustrated in the first two chapters; in Chapter 1 the origins and applications of symmetry are illustrated with the famous Orsted paradox of the interaction between the magnetic needle and the electric current. Chapter 2 deals with rotations and the way in which Hamilton tried to describe them by means of quaternions - this gives an insight into the symmetry properties of vectors, and shows the way in which tensors and spinors gradually moved into the picture. Chapter 3 illustrates the use of symmetry in the classification of energy levels in atoms and solids and discusses broken symmetry.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• 1 Orsted and the principle of Symmetry
• 2 Hamilton and Rotations
• 3 Peierls and Symmetry Breaking

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

An original and well-written essay on symmetrical principles in physics, presented in the form of three case studies. The first study is of Oersted's experiment, in which symmetry principles, plausibly but incorrectly applied, led Oersted to do his research very carefully (but incorrectly) for several years before (perhaps as a result of an accident) he finally got it right. The second study concerns Hamilton's attempt to write physics in terms of quaternions, with an informative analysis of how the enterprise foundered on a false assumption concerning symmetry and how the spinor calculus rescued it. The third of Altmann's cases concerns the Peierls instability of a crystal lattice, and his analysis illustrates the importance of symmetry arguments in condensed-matter theory. The discussions follow a steeply rising curve of difficulty; most undergraduates could manage the first two but probably not the third. Mathematicaly inclined physicists will find the book very interesting. Advanced undergraduate through professional. D. Park; Williams College

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Simon L.AltmannUniversity Lecturer in the Theory of Metals, University of Oxford; Fellow and Lecturer in Mathematical PhysicsBrasenose College, Oxford.