Mathematicians rewarded for decoding symmetry

[Ichingcarpenter]

One of my favorite branches of Mathematics so I think this is Kool.

Award goes to maths that tames wild shapes and houses the infinite.

Philip Ball
Masters of symmetry: John Griggs Thompson and Jacque Tits.Masters of symmetry: John Griggs Thompson and Jacque Tits.University of Florida and Jean-François Dars/CNRS Images

The Abel Prize, generally considered the ‘Nobel’ of mathematics, has been won this year by two mathematicians whose work has helped to classify the building blocks of symmetry.

John Griggs Thompson of the University of Florida, Gainsville, and Jacques Tits of the Collège de France in Paris, France, have been given the prize, worth 6 million Norwegian kroner (US$1.2 million), for their work on group theory, which describes how the symmetry properties of objects fall into distinct classes or groups.

Group theory is one of the most practically useful branches of pure mathematics, being used in scientific fields ranging from fundamental theories of particle physics to the spectroscopic analysis of molecules.

The symmetries of objects can be described using fundamental ‘symmetry operations’: manipulations that leave the object looking unchanged. This is true of squares and cubes, for example, if they are rotated by a quarter of a full turn, or if they are reflected in various mirror planes that cut the shapes in half.


http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080327/full/news.2008.698.html


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symmetry_in_mathematics