In 2012, Leo Kouwenhoven's Group at Delft University of Technology was the first to detect the long-sought Majorana particle. Three years later, fellow physicists led by Ronald Hanson demonstrated the existence of 'spooky action at a distance' in the quantum world - an experiment that proved Einstein wrong and made front-page news in the New York Times. Two examples of top physics in the Netherlands realised with funding from FOM, the Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter.

Now that FOM has become a part of the NWO (Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research) with effect from 1 January 2017, it is a highly appropriate moment to provide a brief history of this striking, unconventional and influential FOM - 'a whale in the pond'. Strings, Mirrors and Tape, presents 70 years of inventive physics research that has made a difference, from the enriched uranium of Jaap Kistemaker to the gravitational theory of Erik Verlinde that turns the cosmos upside down.