Review: Symmetry

Symmetry by Ian Stewart

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Oxford's Very Short Introductions are concise introductions to a wide gamut of topics. Currently available titles cover advertising, Anglo-Saxons, British politics, the Dead Sea Scrolls, folk music, and “stars”. This entry into that intriguing list is a basic, even cursory, overview of the group theory underpinnings of symmetry. I imagine it breaks the stride of voracious VSI readers. A reading of online reviews proves that to be the case: “…not a beginner's book”, “…concepts difficult to follow”, “tough slogging”, and even “abandon all hope” are all common notions from readers.

Actually, Stewart supposes very little mathematical sophistication of the reader. Giving “the mathematical skeleton of the argument”, he reduces game theoretic analysis of rock-paper-scissors to a grocery list of logical facts. When matrix algebra is about to make a cameo in defining symmetry, Stewart casually remarks “we won’t go into that.”
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