Valerie Gonzalez works at the Institute for the Study of Islamic civilization of the Aga Khan University in London. She attended the workshop on “Strings, supersymmetry and gauge theories,” held at Stony Brook, where she told an attentive audience of string theorists and mathematicians about the close relationship between geometric abstraction and sacred art.

An interview with Erik Verlinde. The Dutch physicist, now at the Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Amsterdam, was recently awarded the $2.5 million Spinoza Prize for his recent idea on entropic gravity.

An interview with Sergei Dubovsky. The Russian physicist, now at the Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics at NYU, is an expert in physics beyond the Standard Model. He is a strong advocate of the Multiverse scenario of String Theory.