In this TED video, astrophysicist, cosmologist and Nobel Prize winner George Smoot studies the cosmic microwave background radiation — the afterglow of the Big Bang.  Smoot presents his lecture with the help of dramatic images created through the crunching of massive amounts of real-life data.

The bottom line is that though we have much left to learn, we now have some elegant models for explaining the current structure of the universe based on the influence of gravity on existing matter (including the dark matter), resulting in the emergence of the observed clumping patterns of the known galaxies.

Smoot talks to a lay audience in this lecture, and he presents inspiring information that should humble all of those who view this video without preconceptions.