Does our universe have higher but unusual spatial dimensions? This idea has been gaining popularity to help explain why vastly separated parts of our universe appear so similar, and why the geometry of our universe does not seem to result naturally from the amounts of matter it seems to contain.

We live in the exciting time when humanity discovers the nature of our entire universe. During this year, in particular, however, the quest for cosmological understanding appears to have astronomers groping in the dark.

Does gravity come in chucks? A theory known as Quantum Mechanics tells us about how the universe works on the smallest scales, while Einstein's General Theory of Relativity tells us about how gravity and the universe works on the largest scales. So far, no complete theory has been able to encompass them both.