On the emergence of the abstract concept of symmetry in physics

摘要

In this paper we discuss how the abstract concept of symmetryentered physics. The first step leading to this development occurred with FelixKlein's discovery that the structure of a geometry is determined by the group oftransformations that leave invariant its proposition (1872). Yet, it was only in 1908, e. almost four decades later, that the idea of symmetry fully entered physics. As itwill be shown, this was a consequence of Hermann Minkowski's treatment of specialrelativity.