The Shepherd and the Circle

Both the shepherd and the circle represent a symmetry that can be described as "change without change."

Babies love symmetry.

According to scientific research, symmetry is inherently attractive to the human eye. At a very young age, children are drawn to people with similarity between the left and right sides of the face. Babies spend more time staring at photographs of symmetric people than asymmetric people.

Same for adults. In a study at the University of Louisville, pictures of different individuals were shown to a highly diverse group of Asians, Latinos and whites from 13 different countries. They all had the same general opinion about who were the most attractive — the symmetric ones.

This is not to say that asymmetry is ugly. Don't get upset if you look in the mirror and notice that there are differences between the left and right sides of your face. No one is perfectly balanced.

But the universe does seem to appreciate symmetry. In fact, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist named Frank Wilczek says that "the world is a piece of art, produced according to a very peculiar style."...