History
Budapest hosted
the first complex science-art symmetry event in 1989. Following an odyssey through
Japan to the United States, and through Israel to Russia, the event series
returned to its birthplace in the early years of our decade. Symmetrology has
shed its outdated (and sorrowfully discredited) first coat, lost its
milk-teeth, and has revived at its roots in 2003. Symmetrology has grown in
full age. It has passed through matriculation, although has not yet got its
first degree.
Symmetrology has
met the conditions of becoming a discipline of its own right. It has undergone
a process of institutionalisation, it has formed its infrastructure. The
pillars of this process are the following:
- symmetrology has its publication
forum,
- the journal Symmetry: Culture and Science in printed form, and
- the website http://symmetry.hu in electronic form;
- regular meeting
forum to bring together scientists of different disciplines and artists
of different forms of art, namely the Symmetry
Festivals with their conferences, exhibitions and performances;
- symmetrologists
have found their organisational framework under the umbrella of the International
Symmetry Association;
- symmetrology has its specialised institute, the Symmetrion;
- it elaborated its curricula and entered in university education,
assisting to shape the interdisciplinary thinking of the students;
- curricula
have been published in textbooks in an increasing number;
- the bulk of
symmetry related publications shifted from articles in scattered journals first
to books of collected thematic essays, then recently to monographs, which
can be charactarised with multidisciplinarity at an increasing extent.
Symmetry
considerations broke through the shells of such disciplines that could have
hardly believed before, appeared in new forms of arts. Over its more or less
unified conceptual framework, there have been developed methods, approaches,
general principles of symmetrology of its own.
The structure of
scholarly knowledge (often called science) is under change. Look at this
process from inside. Be at the appropriate place at good time. Join us, and let’s
be together proud active agents of this progress.