Log24

"Symmetry is the concept that something can undergo a series of transformations—spinning, folding, reflecting, moving through time—and, at the end of all those changes, appear unchanged. It lurks everywhere in the universe, from the configuration of quarks to the arrangement of galaxies in the cosmos.

The Enormous Theorem demonstrates with mathematical precision that any kind of symmetry can be broken down and grouped into one of four families, according to shared features. For mathematicians devoted to the rigorous study of symmetry, or group theorists, the theorem is an accomplishment no less sweeping, important, or fundamental than the periodic table of the elements was for chemists. In the future, it could lead to other profound discoveries about the fabric of the universe and the nature of reality.

Except, of course, that it is a mess: the equations, corollaries, and conjectures of the proof have been tossed amid more than 500 journal articles, some buried in thick volumes, filled with the mixture of Greek, Latin, and other characters used in the dense language of mathematics. Add to that chaos the fact that each contributor wrote in his or her idiosyncratic style.

That mess is a problem because without every piece of the proof in position, the entirety trembles. For comparison, imagine the two-million-plus stones of the Great Pyramid of Giza strewn haphazardly across the Sahara, with only a few people who know how they fit together. Without an accessible proof of the Enormous Theorem, future mathematicians would have two perilous choices: simply trust the proof without knowing much about how it works or reinvent the wheel. (No mathematician would ever be comfortable with the first option, and the second option would be nearly impossible.)"

— Ornes, Stephen (2015). "The Whole Universe Catalog : Before they die, aging mathematicians are racing to save the Enormous Theorem's proof, all 15,000 pages of it, which divides existence four ways." Scientific American,  July 2015: 313 (1), 68–75. Reprinted in Stewart, Amy; Folger, Tim. The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2016  (The Best American Series) (pp. 222-230). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kindle Edition.