Into The Impossible

Lyman Alexander Page, Jr. is the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of Physics at Princeton University. He is an expert in observational cosmology and one of the original co-investigators for the WMAP probe that made precise observations of the cosmic background radiation, an electromagnetic echo of the Universe's Big Bang phase. Along with students and collaborators, Professor Lyman measures the spatial temperature variations in the cosmic microwave background (CMB). The CMB, which pervades the universe, is the thermal afterglow of the big bang. Detailed knowledge of the magnitude and pattern of the fluctuations in temperature from spot to spot on the sky, or anisotropy, help us understand how the universe evolved and how the observed structure, at sizes ranging from galaxies to superclusters of galaxies, were formed. From precise measurements of the CMB, one can also deduce many of the cosmological parameters and the physics of the very early universe. For example cosmologists have been a