The Structure and Evolution of the Universe Roadmap Team Beyond Einstein: From the Big Bang to Black Holes 2 Einstein images are used by permission of Roger Richman Agency representing Hebrew University and the Albert Einstein estate. Image of Einstein riding bicycle (pg. 91) courtesy of the Archives, California Institute of Technology. Time magazine cover (pg. 21). Time is a trademark of AOL-Time-Warner, Inc., which has no connection to the NASA …

How did the Universe begin? Does time have a beginning and an end? Does space have edges? The questions are clear and simple. They are as old as human curiosity. But the answers have always seemed beyond the reach of science. Until now. In their attempts to understand how space, time, and matter are connected, Einstein and his successors made three predictions. First, space is expanding from a Big Bang; second, space and time can tie themselves into contorted knots called “black holes” where time actually comes to a halt; third, space itself contains some kind of energy that is pulling the Universe apart. Each of these three predictions seemed so fantastic when it was made that everyone, including Einstein himself, regarded them as unlikely. Incredibly, all three have turned out to be true. Yet Einstein’s legacy is one of deep mystery, because his theory is silent on three questions raised by his fantastic predictions: (1) What powered the Big Bang? (2) What happens to space, time, and matter at the edge of a black hole? (3) What is the mysterious dark energy pulling the Universe apart? To find answers, we must venture beyond Einstein. The answers require new theories, such as the inflationary universe and new insights in high-energy particle theory. Like Einstein’s theory, these make fantastic predictions that seem hard to believe: new unseen dimensions and entire universes beyond our own. We must find facts to confront and guide these new theories. Powerful new technologies now make this possible. Here is where the Beyond Einstein story starts. By exploring the three questions that are Einstein’s legacy, we begin the next revolution in understanding our Universe. We chart our way forward using clues from observations and from new ideas connecting the worlds of the very small and the very large. What powered the Big Bang? During the last decade, sky maps of the radiation relic of the Big Bang—first by NASA’s Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite and more recently by other experiments, including Antarctic balloon flights and NASA’s Microwave Anisotropy Probe (MAP)— have displayed the wrinkles imprinted on the Universe in its first moments. Gravity has pulled these wrinkles into the lumpy Universe of galaxies and planets we see today…..

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