Symmetries and invariances in classical physics

Symmetry, intended as invariance with respect to a transformation (more precisely, with respect to a transformation group), has acquired more and more importance in modern physics. This Chapter explores in 8 Sections the meaning, application and interpretation of symmetry in classical physics. This is done both in general, and with attention to specific topics. The general topics include illustration of the distinctions between symmetries of objects and of laws, and between symmetry principles and symmetry arguments (such as Curie's principle), and reviewing the meaning and various types of symmetry that may be found in classical physics, along with different interpretative strategies that may be adopted. Specific topics discussed include the historical path by which group theory entered classical physics, transformation theory in classical mechanics, the relativity principle in Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, general covariance in his General Theory of Relativity, and Noether's theorems. In bringing these diverse materials together in a single Chapter, we display the pervasive and powerful influence of symmetry in classical physics, and offer a possible framework for the further philosophical investigation of this topic

A Reformulation of Matrix Graph Grammars with Boolean Complexes

Prior publication in the Electronic Journal of Combinatorics.Graph transformation is concerned with the manipulation of graphs by means of rules. Graph grammars have been traditionally studied using techniques from category theory. In previous works, we introduced Matrix Graph Grammars (MGG) as a purely algebraic approach for the study of graph dynamics, based on the representation of simple graphs by means of their adjacency matrices. The observation that, in addition to positive information, a rule implicitly defines negative conditions for its application (edges cannot become dangling, and cannot be added twice as we work with simple digraphs) has led to a representation of graphs as two matrices encoding positive and negative information. Using this representation, we have reformulated the main concepts in MGGs, while we have introduced other new ideas. In particular, we present (i) a new formulation of productions together with an abstraction of them (so called swaps), (ii) the notion of coherence, which checks whether a production sequence can be potentially applied, (iii) the minimal graph enabling the applicability of a sequence, and (iv) the conditions for compatibility of sequences (lack of dangling edges) and G-congruence (whether two sequences have the same minimal initial graph).This work has been partially sponsored by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, project METEORIC (TIN2008-02081/TIN)

Social Network Analysis with sna

Modern social network analysis---the analysis of relational data arising from social systems---is a computationally intensive area of research. Here, we provide an overview of a software package which provides support for a range of network analytic functionality within the R statistical computing environment. General categories of currently supported functionality are described, and brief examples of package syntax and usage are shown.