extremely small -- and it is almost perfect,
except it has these tiny fluctuations at a part in 100,000 level,
which turn out to produce the interesting patterns and designs we see,
that is, galaxies and stars and so forth.
So we have a model, and we can calculate it, and we can use it
to make designs of what we think the universe really looks like.
And that design is sort of way beyond
what our original imagination ever was.
So this is what we started with 15 years ago,
with the Cosmic Background Explorer -- made the map on the upper right,
which basically showed us that there were large-scale fluctuations,
and actually fluctuations on several scales. You can kind of see that.
Since then we've had WMAP,
which just gives us higher angular resolution.
We see the same large-scale structure,
but we see additional small-scale structure.
And on the bottom right is if the satellite had flipped upside down
and mapped the Earth, what kind of a map we would have got of the Earth.
You can see, well, you can, kind of pick out
all the major continents, but that's about it.
But what we're hoping when we get to Planck, we'll have resolution