COSM brings the extraordinary passion, drama and politics of scientific research to life in a way few readers could imagine possible. On an otherwise ordinary day not long from now, inside a massive installation of ultra-high-energy scientific equipment, something goes wrong with a brilliant young physicist's most ambitious experiment. But this is not a calamity. It will soon be seen as one of the most significant breakthroughs in history. For the explosion has left something behind: a sphere the size of a basketball, made of nothing known to science. As the forces of academia, government, theology and the mass media fight for control over the mystery that has been born, one woman comes face to face with fame and terror. For the sphere she has created contains far more than at first appears. And when she finds out what it is, she names it 'cosm'. In this pulse-pounding thriller, Gregory Benford has returned to the world of scientists at work, exploring ideas at the frontier of mankind's knowledge, and posing profound and provocative questions about creation, human destiny and the riddle of godhood.