"Symmetry is beauty" or "symmetry is a measure of beauty" as a
scientific
conception is very misleading and wrong. Symmetry is in principle ugly
because it is associated with the information loss or entropy increase,
based on my new theory, mainly the logarithmic relations of entropy and
symmetry for both static and dynamic systems and the similarity
principle
(see papers listed at http://www.mdpi.org/lin/lin-rpu.htm,
particularly Lin, S. -K. Correlation of Entropy with Similarity and
Symmetry.
J.
Chem. Inf. Comp. Sci., 1996, 36, 367-376). The
Greek
word symmetry means the "sameness measure". It is therefore closely
related
to distinguishability or similarity. Symmetric structure is stable but
not necessarily beautiful. All spontaneous processes lead to the
highest
symmetry which is the equilibrium or a state of "death". Life is
beautiful
but full of asymmetry. It has certain symmetry for the stability
reason.
It has been shown by the history of chemical science and demonstrated
by
the modern arts of chemistry, particularly the organic synthesis, that
chemists endeavor to seek for asymmetry related to both structure and
process,
not at all for symmetry.
A nontechnical
summary (http://www.mdpi.org/lin/uglysymnews.htm)
of this invited talk.