Light and Dark Matter in Durham | Life & Physics

A new book on how Dark Matter may have finished off the dinosaurs is just one example of unexpected connections

Dark Matter is the name we give to the substance which permeates the galaxies, including our own, and dictates the rotation of stars. The gravity induced by Dark Matter bends light and distorts our view of distant objects, and these distortions in turn betray its existence. According to the most recent data, from the Planck satellite, Dark Matter accounts for 84.5% of all matter in the universe, so it is no small thing.

I just spent two days in Durham, doing some physics with friends at the Institute for Particle Physics Phenomenology (IPPP) and discussing, amongst other things, how we might see Dark Matter at CERN's Large Hadron Collider. By coincidence, on the train from London to Durham, I was reading Lisa Randall's new book, "Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs".