Saturday, January 16, 2010

'Most Beautiful' Math Structure Appears In Lab For First Time

The signature of a mathematical structure called E8 has been seen in the real world for the first time (Illustration: Claudio Rocchini under a creative commons 2.5 licence)

From New Scientist:

A complex form of mathematical symmetry linked to string theory has been glimpsed in the real world for the first time, in laboratory experiments on exotic crystals.

Mathematicians discovered a complex 248-dimensional symmetry called E8 in the late 1800s. The dimensions in the structure are not necessarily spatial, like the three dimensions we live in, but they correspond to mathematical degrees of freedom, where each dimension represents a different variable.

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