Symmetry is the most evident attribute of nature, which is blended within almost every aspect of it. Correlating science with symmetry is essentially a compulsion to us as science is nothing but a description of nature, which as mentioned, itself is embedded with symmetric attributes. A brief thought into this correlation has been expressed through this essay using simple ideas and common day-to-day experiences.
The simplest and at times the toughest job to do in this world is to identify symmetry. Symmetry has engulfed our universe into itself with presence of bits and pieces of chaos here and there to avoid making universe monotonous. Reasonable proportioning of dimensions over a space is symmetry but isn’t it a bit too much to digest? Symmetry is something, which is evident by itself and does not need a definition to make people understand it.
When we were in the laps of our mothers, we learnt to understand symmetry through looking at faces. A child realises how reasonably symmetric a human face is in such a young age even though he cannot put it into words. This intuitive understanding later helps us in processing reasoning which is the base of scientific studies.
The study of science enables us to understand and leverage the way nature works. Symmetry aids us in this endeavour of ours to understand ourselves and our surroundings. Equilibrium is an important part of scientific studies and it beholds itself on the very basis of symmetry whether it is in terms of forces, moments or any other external function affecting the system. Whenever we try to explore anything new in the field of science, our ultimate aim is to look for a pattern or symmetry in the observations, these observations are then tied with mathematics to be formulated or expressed using a function. Whenever we plot a function we look for symmetries, for example, the thing that fascinates most people about the graph of sin(x) is not that, that it is bound to give result in between -1 and +1 instead it’s the wavy, curly and roller coaster nature of the curve symmetric about an axis which catches our attention. Calculus is full of such examples and the geometric essence of every concept in it encompasses symmetry. A big chunk of symmetry has been taken up by mathematics but biological bodies like leaves, wood barks etc. compete along.
Objects surrounding us demand symmetry, mankind’s one of the biggest inventions is the development of wheel and the thing that our brain extracts first when we see a wheel is its symmetry. The associated things that come due to the virtue of this symmetry like rolling motion and eventually the ease of transportation it provides are all secondary. The reason for the existence of symmetry in almost every field is a balance of artistic as well as essential quantification done to simplify things and phenomenon.
The simplest way for nature to express itself to naïve species is through symmetry. In this midst of unknown, symmetry in science and nature assist the observers to make conclusions. Human brains are designed in such a way that it looks for patterns but craves for symmetry.