Almost 14 billion years ago, the universe we inhabit burst
into existence in an extraordinary event that initiated the Big Bang. In the
first fleeting fraction of a second, the universe expanded exponentially,
stretching far beyond the view of our best telescopes. All this, of course, was
just theory.
Researchers from the BICEP2 collaboration today announced
the first direct evidence for this cosmic inflation. Their data also represent
the first images of gravitational waves, or ripples in space-time. These waves
have been described as the "first tremors of the Big Bang." Finally,
the data confirm a deep connection between quantum mechanics and general
relativity.