Matter & Energy
“It is quite remarkable to see a material in the lab
behaving with such perfection.” — ALAN TENNANT
Elusive symmetry appears in nature
By Rachel Ehrenberg
A beautiful math emerges from the
acrobatic flips of supercold atoms in a
magnetic field.
In the Jan. 8 Science, researchers report
detecting an elusive, complex symmetry
known as the E8 Lie group, long analyzed
on paper but never before seen in a physical system. The work suggests that this
numerical grace may be hidden in other
systems and may provide a mathematical
link between quantum processes in matter and the physics of the cosmos.
“Finding a mathematically exotic
symmetry in a regular material we can
find on Earth — well, it is mathematically
beautiful and very interesting,”
comments Robert Konik of Brookhaven
National Laboratory in Upton, N. Y.
www.sciencenews.org
January 30, 2010 | SCIENCE NEWS | 15
