Visualization of fundamental symmetries in nature

Abstract

Most matter in nature and technology is composed of crystals and crystal grains. A full understanding of the inherent symmetry is vital. A new interactive software tool is demonstrated, that visualizes 3D space group symmetries. The software computes with Clifford (geometric) algebra. The space group visualizer (SGV) is a script for the open source visual CLUCalc, which fully supports geometric algebra computation. In our presentation we will first give some insights into the geometric algebra description of space groups. The symmetry generation data are stored in an XML file, which is read by a special CLUScript in order to generate the visualization. Then we will use the Space Group Visualizer to demonstrate space group selection and give a short interactive computer graphics presentation on how reflections combine to generate all 230 three-dimensional space groups.