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REPORT COPYRIGHT VIOLATION IN REPLY
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Message Subject
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Energetic Sites
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Poster Handle
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Coming Into Existence |
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Post Content
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Remembering a magnet picks out a particular direction in space thereby breaks down the perfect rotational symmetry of space in which One Direction is equivalent to any other. The basic law of magnetism is rotationally symmetric meaning all directions are equivalent but a particular solution a given magnet breaks the symmetry by picking out a given direction.
This idea of a broken symmetry a real system whose symmetry is lower than the particular law that governs it was first years with great success in studying the physics of metals and other solids.
It’s soon found an application in elementary particle physics when physicist realized that the real particles break the symmetry of an underlying law in their lowest energy states.
This phenomenon is also referred to as the broken symmetry of the ground state or the vacuum. The basic idea is that some general symmetry is broken or hidden in the lowest lying energy states also called the vacuum state but with full symmetry can still be revealed it high enough temperatures or energies.
Here, in the case of Elementary particles, the term high energy implies energies far beyond those we normally deal with comparable to those energies involved during the first instance of the creation of the universe.
In the case of the magnet, The rotational symmetry of its basic laws is broken when the magnet is in its normal low energy state for its field picks out a particular direction in space. But heat up the magnet, excite its quantum components, and it will soon lose its magnetism. In so doing, it no longer picks out any special point in space. The broken symmetry is now restored; space is totally symmetric.
- E David Peat
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