Why Beauty is Truth: a History of Symmetry by Ian Stewart, Basic Books. Hardback ISBN 9780465082360, £15.99.
When I was at university studying physics, I used to think that symmetry was one of the most obscure topics that we were asked to digest. Indeed, symmetry is one of those concepts that at first appear clear and straightforward, but become increasingly distant and tricky when you really try to understand all of the implications.
In this book, Ian Stewart attempts to shed light on a fundamental question: why, at all, do we need to think of the universe in terms of symmetry? He guides us along an interesting historical path where all the names that you encountered in your studies – from Riemannian manifolds to hamiltonians and Lie groups – transform into real, "normal" people. He takes you to a Babylonian school and then to a square in Paris where Galois is duelling – and dying – for love. The reading is enjoyable until you arrive at the physical description of our universe. Then, inevitably, it becomes harder to follow the multiple connections between physics and mathematics; again inevitably, the tough mathematical and physical concepts that lie behind our current knowledge of the laws of nature, are only "approached" in the final chapters and not really explored. So, no miracle then.
This is the second book by Stewart that I have reviewed and I was expecting a lighter approach to mathematical things, similar to the one that I had appreciated in Letters to a young mathematician (CERN Courier July/August 2006 p52). It turns out, however, that it is a hard task even for Stewart to explain symmetry in simple terms. I am relieved! Still, I really appreciated it and look forward to his next effort to make accessible the very abstract and distant ideas that science routinely uses.
Antonella del Rosso, CERN.