Verander de taal

Englishعربى中文DeutschEspañolFrançaisहिन्दीHrvatskiItaliano日本語PortuguêsRomânăРусскийSvenskaTürkçeTiếng Việt

Log in bij Mathigon

of

Nieuw account     Wachtwoord opnieuw instellen     

Transformations and SymmetryPlanets

These “symmetries” might initially seem quite meaningless, but they can actually tell us a lot about our universe. Emmy Noether managed to prove that every symmetry corresponds to a certain physical quantity that is conserved.

For example, time-symmetry implies that Energy must be conserved in our universe: you can convert energy from one type to another (e.g. light to electricity), but you can never create or destroy energy. The total amount of energy in the universe will always stay constant.

CERN is the world’s largest particle accelerator. Scientists smash together fundamental particles at enormous speeds, to learn more about their properties. Can you see the person at the bottom, for size comparison?

The paths taken by particle fragments after a collision

It turns out that, just by knowing about symmetry, physicists can derive most laws of nature that govern our universe – without ever having to do an experiment or observation.

Symmetry can even predict the existence of fundamental particles. One example is the famous Higgs Boson: it was predicted in the 1960s by theoretical physicists, but not observed in the real world until 2012.

Volledige cursus