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A drawing of a butterfly with bilateral symmetry, with left and right sides as mirror images of each other.. In geometry, an object has symmetry if there is an operation or transformation (such as translation, scaling, rotation or reflection) that maps the figure/object onto itself (i.e., the object has an invariance under the transform). [1]
Generalizing from geometrical symmetry in the previous section, one can say that a mathematical object is symmetric with respect to a given mathematical operation, if, when applied to the object, this operation preserves some property of the object. [15] The set of operations that preserve a given property of the object form a group.
Symmetry occurs not only in geometry, but also in other branches of mathematics. Symmetry is a type of invariance: the property that a mathematical object remains unchanged under a set of operations or transformations. [1] Given a structured object X of any sort, a symmetry is a mapping of the object onto itself which preserves the structure.
Asymmetry is the absence of, or a violation of, symmetry (the property of an object being invariant to a transformation, such as reflection). [1] Symmetry is an important property of both physical and abstract systems and it may be displayed in precise terms or in more aesthetic terms. [2]
The symmetric group on a set of size n is the Galois group of the general polynomial of degree n and plays an important role in Galois theory. In invariant theory, the symmetric group acts on the variables of a multi-variate function, and the functions left invariant are the so-called symmetric functions.
All definitions tacitly require the homogeneous relation be transitive: for all ,,, if and then . A term's definition may require additional properties that are not listed in this table. In mathematics , a binary relation R {\displaystyle R} on a set X {\displaystyle X} is antisymmetric if there is no pair of distinct elements of X ...
In mathematics, the symmetric difference of two sets, also known as the disjunctive union and set sum, is the set of elements which are in either of the sets, but not in their intersection. For example, the symmetric difference of the sets { 1 , 2 , 3 } {\displaystyle \{1,2,3\}} and { 3 , 4 } {\displaystyle \{3,4\}} is { 1 , 2 , 4 ...
In mathematics, reflection symmetry, line symmetry, mirror symmetry, or mirror-image symmetry is symmetry with respect to a reflection. That is, a figure which does not change upon undergoing a reflection has reflectional symmetry. In 2-dimensional space, there is a line/axis of symmetry, in 3-dimensional space, there is a plane of symmetry