Rotational symmetry

Certain geometric objects are partially symmetrical when rotated at certain angles such as squares rotated 90°, however the only geometric objects that are fully rotationally symmetric at any angle are spheres, circles and other spheroids.

Because of Noether's theorem, the rotational symmetry of a physical system is equivalent to the angular momentum conservation law.

For discrete symmetry with multiple symmetry axes through the same point, there are the following possibilities: In the case of the Platonic solids, the 2-fold axes are through the midpoints of opposite edges, and the number of them is half the number of edges.

The fundamental domain is a half-plane through the axis, and a radial half-line, respectively.

Axisymmetric and axisymmetrical are adjectives which refer to an object having cylindrical symmetry, or axisymmetry (i.e. rotational symmetry with respect to a central axis) like a doughnut (torus).

An example of approximate spherical symmetry is the Earth (with respect to density and other physical and chemical properties).

In 4D, continuous or discrete rotational symmetry about a plane corresponds to corresponding 2D rotational symmetry in every perpendicular plane, about the point of intersection.

An object can also have rotational symmetry about two perpendicular planes, e.g. if it is the Cartesian product of two rotationally symmetry 2D figures, as in the case of e.g. the duocylinder and various regular duoprisms.

Together with double translational symmetry the rotation groups are the following wallpaper groups, with axes per primitive cell: Scaling of a lattice divides the number of points per unit area by the square of the scale factor.

Therefore, the number of 2-, 3-, 4-, and 6-fold rotocenters per primitive cell is 4, 3, 2, and 1, respectively, again including 4-fold as a special case of 2-fold, etc.

The translation distance for the symmetry generated by one such pair of rotocenters is