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Symmetry

149 bytes added, 12:56, May 14, 2007
Blake
The term Symmetry arises in a number of contexts, and has several, related meanings<ref> Intial definitions from: http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/symmetry</ref> :
* It may refer to an object which has balanced proportions, and the beauty of form arising from those balanced proportions, notably a face, or an animal, e.g a racehorse.tiger, as in Blake's poem: TIGER, tiger, burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry?  
* It may refer to the property of being mathematically symmetrical, especially relating to a correspondence in size, shape, and relative position of parts on opposite sides of a dividing line or median plane or about a center or axis; sometimes the term [[bilateral symmetry]] is used in this context.
* It may refer to an [[isometry|isometric transformation]] or [[rigid body motion]] of a geometric figure, which determines a one-to-one mapping onto itself, and which preserves angles and distances. There are four such kinds of [[isomorphism]]:[[Rotation]]s, [[Reflection]]s, [[Translation]]s and [[Glide-Reflection]]s
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