Welcome to Spontaneous Symmetry:

A site devoted to Physics, Math, Computing, and Life.

This is my personal website, a place where I can share a bit about who I am and what I do. I'm a scientist, full time student, and part time programmer. Feel free to browse this site, free of charge. My hope is that you'll learn something about the world around you, and possibly about the site's author. Thank you very much for stopping by.


So, why the name Spontaneous Symmetry? The term comes from a phenomenon that appears in may fields of physics known as spontaneous symmetry breaking. Symmetries are all around us and shape our lives in ways few understand. On an aesthetic level, symmetries are considered beautiful and visually pleasing. But the mathematical concept of a symmetry is much deeper than the familiar definition. On a fundamental level, symmetries govern how the world works. They are the language of the most fundamental physical processes that we can describe.

A mathematical group known as E8. It is the largest exceptional lie group, an algebraic structure known for its many beautiful symmetries.

A simulated image of a potential collision event causing the creation and almost immediate decay of a Higgs Boson.

 

A picture of the ATLAS detector as it was being constructed. The eight large structures are toroidal magnets which create a magnetic field as a part of the muon system.

 

The standard model lagrangian: the equation that describes our current model for fundamental physics. Gravity is not included.

 

© Copyright 2012, George Herbert Lewis.
Fork me on GitHub