The Goldilocks Enigma: Why Is the Universe Just Right for Life? by Davies Paul

Author:Davies, Paul [Davies, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 2008-04-29T00:00:00+00:00

Figure 24: Spontaneous symmetry-breaking. (a) A pencil poised on its tip is in a symmetric state: it looks the same if rotated about a vertical axis, as shown. In this state the pencil manifests the underlying symmetry of the gravitational field, which is indifferent to horizontal directions. However, the symmetric state is unstable, and the pencil will topple over. (b) In the horizontal state, the pencil is stable, but it has broken the symmetry of the gravitational field by selecting a specific horizontal direction, indicated by the arrow. The actual direction is arbitrary. If the experiment were performed many times, the pencil’s positions would distribute themselves randomly around the toppling point: the ensemble would manifest the underlying symmetry, even though each specific case breaks it.

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