The Structure of Spacetime and Noncommutative Geometry

We give a general and nontechnical review of some aspects of noncommutative geometry as a tool to understand the structure of spacetime. We discuss the motivations for the constructions of a noncommutative geometry, and the passage from commutative to noncommutative spaces. We then give a brief description of Connes approach to the standard model, of the noncommutative geometry of strings and of field theory on noncommutative spaces. We also discuss the role of symmetries and some possible consequences for cosmology.