{"id":13454,"date":"2020-06-23T14:10:52","date_gmt":"2020-06-23T21:10:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/?p=13454"},"modified":"2020-06-28T17:30:31","modified_gmt":"2020-06-29T00:30:31","slug":"the-biggest-ideas-in-the-universe-14-symmetry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/2020\/06\/23\/the-biggest-ideas-in-the-universe-14-symmetry\/","title":{"rendered":"The Biggest Ideas in the Universe | 14. Symmetry"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Symmetry is kind of a big deal in physics &#8212; big enough that the magazine jointly published by the SLAC and Fermilab accelerator laboratories is simply called <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.symmetrymagazine.org\/\">symmetry<\/a><\/em>. Symmetry appears in a variety of contexts, but before we dive into them, we have to understand what &#8220;symmetry&#8221; actually means. Which is what we do in this video, where we explain the basic ideas of what mathematicians call &#8220;group theory.&#8221; By the end you&#8217;ll know exactly what is meant, for example, by &#8220;SU(3)xSU(2)xU(1).&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"lyte-wrapper\" title=\"The Biggest Ideas in the Universe | 14. Symmetry\" style=\"width:640px;max-width:100%;margin:5px;\"><div class=\"lyMe\" id=\"WYL_yCxacFBLHIY\" itemprop=\"video\" itemscope itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/VideoObject\"><div><meta itemprop=\"thumbnailUrl\" content=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/yCxacFBLHIY\/hqdefault.jpg\" \/><meta itemprop=\"embedURL\" content=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/yCxacFBLHIY\" \/><meta itemprop=\"duration\" content=\"PT1H3M37S\" \/><meta itemprop=\"uploadDate\" content=\"2020-06-23T15:11:22Z\" \/><\/div><div id=\"lyte_yCxacFBLHIY\" data-src=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/yCxacFBLHIY\/hqdefault.jpg\" class=\"pL\"><div class=\"tC\"><div class=\"tT\" itemprop=\"name\">The Biggest Ideas in the Universe | 14. Symmetry<\/div><\/div><div class=\"play\"><\/div><div class=\"ctrl\"><div class=\"Lctrl\"><\/div><div class=\"Rctrl\"><\/div><\/div><\/div><noscript><a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/yCxacFBLHIY\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/yCxacFBLHIY\/0.jpg\" alt=\"The Biggest Ideas in the Universe | 14. Symmetry\" width=\"640\" height=\"340\" \/><br \/>Watch this video on YouTube<\/a><\/noscript><meta itemprop=\"description\" content=\"The Biggest Ideas in the Universe is a series of videos where I talk informally about some of the fundamental concepts that help us understand our natural world. Exceedingly casual, not overly polished, and meant for absolutely everybody. This is Idea #14, &quot;Symmetry.&quot; Different manifestations of symmetry are at the heart of much of modern physics, so it&#039;s worth looking at how we should best characterize it. That&#039;s leads us into the mathematics of group theory. My web page: http:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/ My YouTube channel: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/c\/seancarroll Mindscape podcast: http:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/podcast The Biggest Ideas playlist: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/playlist?list=PLrxfgDEc2NxZJcWcrxH3jyjUUrJlnoyzX Blog posts for the series: http:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/category\/biggest-ideas-in-the-universe\/ Background image by Sylvia Cordedda at DeviantArt: https:\/\/www.deviantart.com\/c-91\/art\/Naive-341640491 #science #physics #ideas #universe #learning #cosmology #philosophy #math #grouptheory #symmetry\"><\/div><\/div><div class=\"lL\" style=\"max-width:100%;width:640px;margin:5px;\"><\/div><figcaption><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And here is the associated Q&amp;A video:<\/p>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"lyte-wrapper\" title=\"The Biggest Ideas in the Universe | Q&amp;amp;A 14 - Symmetry\" style=\"width:640px;max-width:100%;margin:5px;\"><div class=\"lyMe\" id=\"WYL_7m-USntpQh4\" itemprop=\"video\" itemscope itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/VideoObject\"><div><meta itemprop=\"thumbnailUrl\" content=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/7m-USntpQh4\/hqdefault.jpg\" \/><meta itemprop=\"embedURL\" content=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7m-USntpQh4\" \/><meta itemprop=\"duration\" content=\"PT1H2M33S\" \/><meta itemprop=\"uploadDate\" content=\"2020-06-29T00:27:05Z\" \/><\/div><div id=\"lyte_7m-USntpQh4\" data-src=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/7m-USntpQh4\/hqdefault.jpg\" class=\"pL\"><div class=\"tC\"><div class=\"tT\" itemprop=\"name\">The Biggest Ideas in the Universe | Q&amp;A 14 - Symmetry<\/div><\/div><div class=\"play\"><\/div><div class=\"ctrl\"><div class=\"Lctrl\"><\/div><div class=\"Rctrl\"><\/div><\/div><\/div><noscript><a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/7m-USntpQh4\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/7m-USntpQh4\/0.jpg\" alt=\"The Biggest Ideas in the Universe | Q&amp;amp;A 14 - Symmetry\" width=\"640\" height=\"340\" \/><br \/>Watch this video on YouTube<\/a><\/noscript><meta itemprop=\"description\" content=\"The Biggest Ideas in the Universe is a series of videos where I talk informally about some of the fundamental concepts that help us understand our natural world. Exceedingly casual, not overly polished, and meant for absolutely everybody. This is the Q&amp;A video for Idea #14, &quot;Symmetry.&quot; A mixture of abstract thoughts about the integers, what it means for dimensions to be complex, and how we know if a theory has topological defects. My web page: http:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/ My YouTube channel: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/c\/seancarroll Mindscape podcast: http:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/podcast The Biggest Ideas playlist: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/playlist?list=PLrxfgDEc2NxZJcWcrxH3jyjUUrJlnoyzX Blog posts for the series: http:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/category\/biggest-ideas-in-the-universe\/ Background image by Sylvia Cordedda at DeviantArt: https:\/\/www.deviantart.com\/c-91\/art\/Naive-341640491 #science #physics #ideas #universe #learning #cosmology #philosophy #math #grouptheory #symmetry\"><\/div><\/div><div class=\"lL\" style=\"max-width:100%;width:640px;margin:5px;\"><\/div><figcaption><\/figcaption><\/figure>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Symmetry is kind of a big deal in physics &#8212; big enough that the magazine jointly published by the SLAC and Fermilab accelerator laboratories is simply called symmetry. Symmetry appears in a variety of contexts, but before we dive into them, we have to understand what &#8220;symmetry&#8221; actually means. Which is what we do in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[137,48,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biggest-ideas-in-the-universe","category-math","category-science"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13454"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13454\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13456,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13454\/revisions\/13456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}