Abstract
We prove that in some reasonable sense, every possible physical law can be reformulated in terms of symmetries. This result explains the well-known success of the group-theoretic approach in physics.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Benioff, P. (1976). Models of Zermelo Frankel set theories as carriers for the mathematics of physics. I, II,Journal of Mathematical Physics,17(5), 618–640.
Finkelstein, A. M., and Kreinovich, V. (1985). Derivation of Einstein's, Brans-Dicke and other equations from group considerations, inOn Relativity Theory.Proceedings of the Sir Arthur Eddington Centenary Symposium, Nagpur India 1984, Y. Choque-Bruhat and T. M. Karade, eds., World Scientific, Singapore, Vol. 2, pp. 138–146.
Finkelstein, A. M., Kreinovich, V., and Zapatrin, R. R. (1986). Fundamental physical equations uniquely determined by their symmetry groups, inLecture Notes in Mathematics, Vol. 1214, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, pp. 159–170.
Group Theory in Physics. (1992). Proceedings of the International Symposium Held in Honor of Prof. Marcos Moshinsky, Cocoyoc, Morelos, Mexico, 1991, American Institute of Physics, New York.
Kreinovich, V. (1976). Derivation of the Schroedinger equations from scale invariance.Theoretical and Mathematical Physics,8(3), 282–285.
Kreinovich, V., and Longpré, L. (1995). Why are symmetries a universal language of physics? A remark, in1995 Structures Conference Research Abstracts, June 1995, Abstract No. 95-30.
Li, M., and Vitányi, P. (1993).An Introduction to Kolmogorov Complexity and its Applications, Springer-Verlag, New York.
Martin-Löf, P. (1966). The definition of random sequences.Information and Control,9, 602–619.
Olver, P. J. (1995).Equivalence, Invariants, and Symmetry, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Symmetries in Physics. (1992). Proceedings of the International Symposium Held in Honor of Prof. Marcos Moshinsky, Cocoyoc, Morelos, Mexico, 1991, Springer-Verlag, Berlin.
Wald, A. (1937). Die Wiederspruchsfreiheit des Kollektiv Begriffes der Wahrscheinlichkeitsrechnung,Ergebnisse eines Mathematischen Kolloquiums,8, 38–72.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kreinovich, V., Longpré, L. Unreasonable effectiveness of symmetry in physics. Int J Theor Phys 35, 1549–1555 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02084960
Received:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02084960