Captivating Symmetry

Daniela Richtáriková
Mechanical Engineering Faculty STU
Bratislava
Symmetries
• mathematics
transformations leaving an original invariant.

• from geometric point of view

congruent geometric mappings - translation,
rotation, axial symmetry, and central symmetry -
forming a group with respect to composition.

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 History Survey

Ancient Greece
• Philosophical category expressing a sort of regularity,
proportionality and harmony.

• The first classifications of regular solids:

- discovery that there exist only five regular polyhedra,
known as the Platonic solids - tetrahedron, cube,
octahedron, dodecahedron, and icosahedron,
- their generalised truncated forms - Archimedean
semi-regular solids
- Euclid’s geometric polyhedra description

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 History Survey
Renaissance
masterpieces of Leonardo da Vinci and Albrecht Dürer

                                     

“Vitruvian Man” (1487) “De symmetria partium in rectis

“Canon of Proportions” formis humanorum corporum” (1528)
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 History Survey
16. – 17. century
Johannes Keppler
• derived orbits of then known planets from the shape of platonic
solids,
• and later he published three planetary motion laws.

 
• discovered regular non-convex polyhedra
• In 1611 his paper on hexagonal symmetry of snow crystal was
released.
                                   

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 History Survey
18. – 19. century
• Symmetry development was tightly associated with
development in crystallography and its strive to classify crystals
by groups according to their symmetries.
• There exist 230 types. They are derived from combinations of
32 crystallographic point groups with 14 Bravais lattices which
belong to one of 7 lattice systems.

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 History Survey
1860
Luis Pasteur discovered the dependence between optical activity
and enantiomorphic molecular structure of tartaric acid.
Substance chemical structure theory started to be formed,
explaining existence of isomers, substances of identical
chemical composition but of different physical and chemical

 
properties. Later, after the World War II thanks to x-ray, this
theory was confirmed.
                                   

levotartaric acid (D (−) tartaric acid) dextrotartaric acid (L (+) tartaric acid)
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 History Survey
1832
Evariste Galois writes his work on permutation studies of
algebraic equations resulting into formation of the new branch,
group theory. Group theory enabled to use symmetry as one of
the main classification criteria in several science disciplines.
1872
Felix Klein proposed Erlangen program where geometry is

 
classified by system of invariants (properties which remain
unchanged) with respect to geometric transformation group.
1890-91
                                   

Using Group theory, A. S. Fedorov and A. M. Schönflies

independently characterised 17 two-dimensional and 230 three-
dimensional crystallography groups.

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 History Survey
20th century
• Symmetry theory elaborating, its extention also to motion,
consequently contributed to the quantum theory formation.
• Using orbital symmetry L. Pauling and  J. C. Slater built valence
bond theory in chemistry.

                                     

dz2 orbital fz3 orbital

Symmetry became one of the main principles and enabled to find

common basis for microworld particles behaviour description.
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 History Survey

... Regularity, rhythm has attracted human’s attention for

ages. It has been reflected in human performance and
conserved in works. Remains of distinct cultures are the
evidence.
Surprising is the fact that long time before all possibilities
of regular layout in circle, strip or plain were generated,
people used them in art. Ornamental art history shows that
first objects of rosette ornaments, all 7 types of frieze
ornaments, even signs of conformal and similarity
symmetry were used in middle and late Palaeolithic. All 17
wallpaper patterns occurred in wall decorations of
Neolithic and early Middle Ages.

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 Symmetry is Natural

Symmetry has accompanied culture evolution, naturally

including science as well as art. It brings understanding,
harmony, order, and elegance. Being studied step by step,
and very intensively in last centuries, symmetry was
declared to be
 
“a fundamental organising principle in nature and culture.
The analysis of symmetry allows for understanding the
organisation of a pattern, and provides a means for
determining both invariance and change.”
(according to htttp://mathforum.org)

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 Symmetry is Natural

• Homogeneity, invariance are considered to be the state of

absolute symmetry. Interactions cause symmetry breaking
and “patterns” are produced. Although, patterns are not
symmetric in ideal way one can reveal wherever: regular
molecular structure, orbital symmetry, organism shape,
and periodic performances: seasons, Moon phases, heart
beat, biological rhythms, ... many substances exist in two
spatially symmetric forms from which only one form is
active. Even chaotic state presents elements of symmetry.
Nature is a self-regulating complex system keeping
balance signified just by means of symmetries.
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 Symmetry Fractal Geometry

• Ancient Greece • 1970s

• represents order • represents probability
and regularity and chaos

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 Symmetry & Chaos

Since beginning fractal geometry has been successfully

used for description and modelling of natural shapes and
evens. It manages to join random influence with system of
simple rules resulting in production of deterministic object
repeating its structure on any scale.

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 Nature

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 Nature

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 Nature

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 Nature

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 Nature

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Fractals
• iteration: xn+1= f (xn)
• selfsimilarity
• non-integer Hausdorf dimension

a) self-similarity dimension D,
log m m is a number of self-similar parts and
D=
1 r is a contraction factor.
log
r
• b) box-counting dimension d,
log N ( s ) N(s) is a number of grid cells
d= covering the fractal ,
1
log s is a distance between grid lines
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 Fractal Modelling
Fractals of Complex Plane
• Mandelbrot set
zn+1 = zn2 + c

Colours represent the number of iterations

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 Fractal Modelling
Fractals of Complex Plane
• Julia sets
zn+1= zn3 - 1 zn+1= zn4 - 1

Colours represent the values to which the iteration rule

converges.
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 Fractal Modelling

IFS Fractals

IFS (Iterated Function Systems) are given by the finite set

of affine contraction mappings {W1 , W2, ... Wn } defined
on the complete metric space.

One step of iteration :

Ai+1= W(Ai) = W1(Ai) ∪ W2(Ai)∪ ... ∪ Wn (Ai)
or Ri+1 = Wi (Ri)
The final object A∞ (A∞= W(A∞) or A∞ = ∪ Ri ) represents
an attractor that from certain step becomes invariant.
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 Fractal Modelling

IFS Fractals

In following pictures one step of iteration was composed of

• basic affine mapping,
• main additional transformation which was picked at random
or under control out of the set 1, and
• optional transformation which can also be picked at random
or under control out of the set 2.

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Rosettes Fractal Modelling
set 1: class of rotations set 2: axial symmetry

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Rosettes Fractal Modelling
set 1: class of rotations set 2: homothety

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Rosettes Fractal Modelling
set 1: class of rotations set 2: class of homotheties

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Translations Fractal Modelling
set 1: class of translations along a curve

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Translations Fractal Modelling
set 1: class of translations along a curve
set 2: class of homotheties

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Translations Fractal Modelling
set 1: class of rotations
set 2: class of translations along a curve

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Circle Inversions Fractal Modelling
set 1: circle inversions with symmetrical layout

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Circle Inversions Fractal Modelling
set 1: circle inversions
set 2: non linear mapping

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Circle Inversions Fractal Modelling
set 1: circle inversions
set 2: non linear mapping

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 WebMathematica Applets

http://www.webmathematica.eu/Scienar1/index.php/
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 Fractal Geometry

Being able to describe the regularity of items as well as

chaotic behaviour, producing naturally looking objects as
well as objects with surprising and interesting structure, it
sustainedly became a part of expressing art tools.

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 Student Artworks

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 Student Artworks

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 Student Artworks

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 Student Artworks

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 Student Artworks

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 Student Artworks

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 Student Artworks

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