Humans throughout history have had a passionate drive to understand the origin of the universe. There is, perhaps, no single question that so transcends cultural and temporal divides, inspiring the imagination of our ancient forebears as well as the research of the modern cosmologist. At a deep level, there is a collective longing for an explanation of why there is a universe, how it has come to take the form we witness, and for the rationale—the principle—that drives its evolution. The astounding thing is that humanity has now come to a point where a framework is emerging for answering some of these questions scientifically.

The currently accepted scientific theory of creation declares that the universe experienced the most extreme of conditions—enormous energy, temperature, and density—during its earliest moments. These conditions, as is by now familiar, require that both quantum mechanics and gravity be taken into account, and hence the birth of the universe provides a profound arena for exercising the insights of superstring theory. We will discuss these nascent insights shortly, but first, we briefly recount the pre–string theory cosmological story, which is often referred to as the standard model of cosmology.