ABSTRACT
The term symmetry originally meant a sense of harmonious, aesthetically pleasing proportionality that embodies beauty. Soon the term symmetry acquired a more precise meaning of mathematical balance such as when one shape becomes exactly like another if you fl ip (“mirror” symmetry), slide, or turn it. In time, symmetry came to be defi ned when this internal identity could be demonstrated according to the rules of a formal system. A mathematical object is symmetric with respect to a given mathematical operation, if, when applied to the object, this operation preserves some property of the object. The set of operations that preserve a given property of the object form a group. Symmetry has been transformed in physics to mean invariance under any kind of transformation. According to Noether’s theorem, a continuous mathematical symmetry corresponds to a conserved quantity.
