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Editors’ picks 2022

Symmetry emerging from the algorithmic nature of evolution

Nature Reviews Physics volume 5, page 80 (2023)Cite this article

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Physicists love symmetry, or as Phil Anderson put it: “It is only slightly overstating the case to say that physics is the study of symmetry.” But is symmetry a natural feature or is it just helpful in our description of nature? Writing in PNAS, Iain Johnston and colleagues suggest that symmetric structures in nature are preferred because they require less information to encode — they are more compressible.

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References

Original article

  • Johnston, I. G. et al. Symmetry and simplicity spontaneously emerge from the algorithmic nature of evolution. PNAS 119, e2113883119 (2022)

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  1. Nature Reviews Physics https://www.nature.com/natrevphys/

    Iulia Georgescu

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  1. Iulia Georgescu
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Correspondence to Iulia Georgescu.

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Georgescu, I. Symmetry emerging from the algorithmic nature of evolution. Nat Rev Phys 5, 80 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42254-023-00554-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s42254-023-00554-7

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