MARCELO GLEISER is a professor of physics and astronomy at Dartmouth College where he runs a very active cosmology group. His work in theoretical physics focuses on the dynamical processes that took place during the very early universe. As such, it brings together particle physics, the study of the very small, and cosmology, the study of the very large. He is the author of The Dancing Universe: From Creation Myths to the Big Bang; and The Prophet and the Astronomer.