Origins of the Universe: The Cosmic Microwave Background and the Search for Quantum Gravity

The quest to find a theory of quantum gravity that could potentially explain everything.

Nearly 60 years ago, Nobel Prize-winners Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson stumbled across a mysterious hiss of faint radio static that was interfering with their observations. They had found the key to unravelling the story of the Big Bang and the origin of our universe.

That signal was the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), the earliest light in the universe, released 379,000 years after the Big Bang. It c...