The Ambidextrous Universe
Martin Gardner’s book explores symmetry and asymmetry across human culture, science, and the cosmos. Beginning with mirrors, it moves through poetry, art, music, galaxies, stars, planets, wildlife, and molecular physics, including a chapter on carbon’s versatility. The final sections discuss the Ozma problem—difficulty distinguishing left from right in extraterrestrial communication—and reference Kant, James, Hinton, and Wu’s beta‑decay experiment that confirmed parity violation.