Receive emails about upcoming NOVA programs and related content, as well as featured reporting about current events through a science lens. Symmetry also has an aesthetic meaning, although this is ...

We are fond of saying things are symmetric, but what does that really mean? Intuitively we have a sense of symmetry as a kind of mirroring. Suppose we draw a vertical line through the middle of a ...

There's a part of the brain that enables us to perceive magnitude -- we can compare loudness when hearing different tones or compare the number of dots in a group at a glance. Neuroscientists have ...

This lavishly illustrated book provides a hands-on, step-by-step introduction to the intriguing mathematics of symmetry. Instead of breaking up patterns into blocks--a sort of potato-stamp ...

Author Mario Livio has studied the relationship between art and mathematics. He tells Michele Norris most of us are attracted to symmetry spiced by some elements of surprise... and that combo is the ...

Mathematics is visible everywhere in nature, even where we are not expecting it. It can help explain the way galaxies spiral, a seashell curves, patterns replicate, and rivers bend. Even subjective ...