Taking the Measure of the Universe

The cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation is the oldest light in the universe - it is literally the remnant heat left over from the Big Bang. This fossil relic has survived largely intact and it provides us with a unique probe of conditions in the early universe, long before any stars or galaxies had formed. NASA has now flown two satellites devoted to studying the CMB: 'COBE' and 'WMAP'. In this lecture I will describe what we have learned from these missions including: evidence for the Big Bang itself; new measurements of the age, shape, and content of the universe; and new evidence that all structure in the universe emerged from microscopic quantum fluctuations in the primordial soup.