Symmetry attracts us. Studies comparing people’s reactions to different faces have shown, for example, that they find highly symmetrical faces more attractive than less symmetrical faces. The symmetry ...

On a winter day, a snowflake can look like a tiny work of art, with six delicate arms branching outward in nearly identical patterns. For centuries, people have admired this symmetry and wondered how ...

Scientists report the first hints of profound symmetry transformations in the hot soup of quarks, antiquarks and gluons produced in most energetic collisions. These new results thus suggest the ...

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 ...

An unusual form of symmetry breaking in coupled microresonators with balanced optical gain and loss is now exploited to realize a novel type of optical isolator. Each mode of an optical resonator has ...