With something like Chernobyl, the public reaction was Oh, my God, science has really done wrong.

The big bang, the most cataclysmic event we can imagine, on closer inspection appears finely orchestrated.

My name is George Smoot III, and I AM smarter than a fifth-grader.

I played football and ran track in junior high, but by high school I was getting serious about my studies.

With something like Chernobyl, the public reaction was Oh, my God, science has really done wrong.

But every day I go to work I'm making a bet that the universe is simple, symmetric, and aesthetically pleasing — a universe that we humans, with our limited perspective, will someday understand.

I think we all want to know where we came from and how we fit into the world, but some of us need to know how it all works in great detail.