Természettudomány

Bacteria form a fundamental branch of life. They are the oldest forms of life as we know it, and they are still the most prolific living organisms. They inhabit every part of the Earth's surface, its ocean depths, and even terrains such as boiling hotsprings. They are most familiar as agents of disease, but benign bacteria are critical to the recycling of elements and all ecology, as well as to human health.

In the 1800s mathematicians introduced a formal theory of symmetry: group theory. Now a branch of abstract algebra, this subject first arose in the theory of equations. Symmetry is an immensely important concept in mathematics and throughout thesciences, and its applications range across the entire subject. Symmetry governs the structure of crystals, innumerable types of pattern formation, how systems change their state as parameters vary

Numbers are integral to our everyday lives and feature in everything we do. In this Very Short Introduction Peter M. Higgins, the renowned mathematics writer, unravels the world of numbers