Newswise — April 22, 2014 (Waterloo, Ontario, Canada) – It’s been called the universe’s most elusive substance—and for good reason. First hypothesized in the 1930s, dark matter is thought to make up over a quarter of the mass of our universe—far more than ordinary matter—yet we still don’t understand its nature or composition.

On Wednesday May 7, 2014, join Professor Gianfranco Bertone as he explores this cosmic mystery in “Behind the Scenes of the Universe: From the Higgs to Dark Matter,” part of Perimeter Institute’s Public Lecture Series presented by Sun Life Financial. Bertone will take the audience from the Large Hadron Collider at CERN to the new generation of astroparticle experiments being conducted deep underground and in space as he explores the huge impact that direct detection of dark matter would represent for physics and beyond.

Bertone is an Associate Professor at the University of Amsterdam, where he investigates topics at the interface of particle physics and cosmology. He is also a member of GRAPPA, a new center of excellence in Gravitation and Astroparticle Physics at the University of Amsterdam.

In addition to his research, Bertone edited Particle Dark Matter: Observations, Models and Searches, was editor-in-chief of the journal Physics of the Dark Universe, and has authored a popular science book, Behind the Scenes of the Universe: From the Higgs to Dark Matter.

Bertone’s lecture will be held on Wednesday May 7, 2014 at 7:00 PM EDT in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

You can view past Perimeter Public Lectures and events online, and find further details about Perimeter’s research, training, and outreach activities at http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca.

ABOUT PERIMETER INSTITUTEPerimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics is an independent, non-profit, scientific research organization working to advance our understanding of physical laws and develop new ideas about the very essence of space, time, matter, and information. Located in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, Perimeter also provides a wide array of research training and educational outreach activities to nurture scientific talent and share the importance of discovery and innovation among students, teachers, and the general public. In partnership with the Governments of Ontario and Canada, Perimeter is a successful example of public-private collaboration in scientific research, training, and outreach. http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/ @Perimeter

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