Stories about symmetry

Abstract

In this note I would like to shine a light on topics where symmetry plays a role. Together we will explore how symmetry can be captured mathematically and how concepts involving symmetry help to understand viruses and self-organising materials, how they can be used to design better algorithms and how the classification of elementary symmetries leads to an exciting story about an unprecedented communal effort to prove a big mathematical theorem. I will give examples of open questions that still wait to be answered.