Physics World May 2014

Cosmic claims: sifting through the first evidence for inflation

I doubt anyone could have predicted that a video of a drop falling from an antique funnel of pitch at a lab at Trinity College Dublin would become one of the science stories of 2013. In fact, we didn’t even write about it at the time. Partly to make amends, the May issue includes a fabulous article by Shane D Bergin, Stefan Hutzler and Denis Weaire from the lab in Dublin where the experiment is based. In the article, they explain the science behind the pitch drop, discuss the history of the experiment and reflect on the value of “slow science” to a hyper-connected, social-media world. And in case you missed the exciting findings about the early universe by the BICEP2 collaboration, Tushna Commissariat rounds up what the researchers claim to have seen – and whether their findings stand up to scrutiny.

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