Symmetry is a fascinating structural property of matter. Many molecular systems tend to create symmetric structures. While the common view of symmetry is dichotomous – a molecule is considered either symmetric or not - numerous experimental and theoretical measurements show that approximate symmetry is much more common.

One may ask then how far from symmetry is a given molecular structure or “what is the symmetry content of a molecule”. The continuous symmetry measure (CSM), originally developed by Prof. David Avnir, answers these questions by quantifying the level of symmetry of a given structure and providing a new terminology for symmetry analysis. Our group focuses on improving the method for a variety of molecular structure, and applying it to study various phenomena that involve approximate symmetry and chirality.

Members:

• Prof. Inbal Tuvi-Arad, Department of Natural Sciences
• Yaffa Shalit
• The Research Software company
• Sagiv Barhoom - Developer and system admin

Collaborators:

• Dr. Gil Alon, Deptartment of Mathematics and Computer Science, The Open University of Israel
• Prof. David Avnir, Institute of Chemistry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Interested? Have any questions?

Please do not hesitate to contact us!