Dark matter remains one of the most compelling enigmas in modern cosmology. Although it does not emit light, its gravitational influence is essential for the formation and evolution of cosmic ...

The e-mail arrived out of the blue last week. Did I want to attend a “private screening” in Covent Garden, London, of a new short film about cosmology, particle physics and love? It sounded ...

Stuart Clark's new book sweeps over you like a maelstrom of names, places and ideas. In The Unknown Universe, Clark sets out to describe the state of our knowledge — and lack thereof — about central ...

Harvard physicist Lisa Randall talks about her new book, Knocking On Heaven's Door, an examination of the latest findings in cosmology and the history of scientific thought, and discusses a report ...

No matter how elegant your theory is, experimental data will have the last word. Observations of the retrograde motion of the planets were fundamental to the Copernican revolution, in which the sun ...

The fundamental nature of living things challenges assumptions that physicists have held for centuries.

Cosmologists face a dilemma. The rise of quantitative cosmology, exemplified by the release of new data in March on the cosmic microwave background from the WMAP satellite (see pp16-19; print version ...

THIS YEAR’S Nobel prize for physics was split two ways, but both halves went for discoveries beyond Earth. One was for a finding that is, by astronomical standards, quite close by—a planet going ...

“By combining the expertise and scientific potential of our three partner institutions, we are creating a global hub for excellence and knowledge transfer in theoretical physics,” says Johannes Henn ...