Rigidity

How about another example? If you push one side of a rigid object, then the other side moves. You are probably not impressed by this observation, which might seem rather commonplace but is actually quite amazing. Somehow you have managed to miraculously transport force from one point to another. What is happening in the underlying physics when you do that? The objects are formed of crystals. The fact that they have fixed positions breaks translational symmetry. The breaking of the translation symmetry of the atoms leads to rigidity as a resulting property. The broader point, perhaps, is that many physical phenomena, from the esoteric to things we observe every day, are consequences of symmetry breaking.