For thousands of years, people have gazed into the heavens and asked many of the same questions that we ask. How big is the universe? Where did it come from? Does the universe have an edge? A center? When did it begin? And will it ever come to an end? As human beings, we are not satisfied with endless observations alone. We want a COSMOLOGY, a theory from which we can understand the properties, evolution, and nature of the universe as a whole.