Column Cosmology

Physicists’ devotion to symmetry has led them astray before

If dark matter WIMPs are mythical, they join the ancient idea that the planets moved in circles

By Tom Siegfried

Contributing Correspondent

- More than 2 years ago

Ptolemaic model of planets

In ancient Greece, Aristotle deduced the existence of an exotic form of matter in space based on the circular symmetry of celestial motion, a symmetry preserved in the Ptolemaic model of planets orbiting the Earth in a combination of circular motions.

Andreas Cellarius/Wikimedia Commons

Second of two parts

Physicists have a lot in common with Ponce de León and U2’s Bono.