Modern Cosmology and the Origin of the Universe

The last decades have seen great advances in our understanding of the history of our universe. I will summarize our current knowledge, describe some of the puzzles that still remain and speculate about future developments in cosmology. Matias Zaldarriaga has made many influential and creative contributions to our understanding of the early universe, particle astrophysics, and cosmology As a probe of fundamental physics. Much of his work centers on understanding the clues about the earliest moments of our universe encoded in the Cosmic Microwave Background, the faint glow of radiation generated by the Big Bang, and in the distribution of matter in the late Universe.