COBE discovered the quantum fluctuations that were generated when the Universe was roughly the size of a grain of sand, and which are ultimately the origin of you, me, galaxies, and all the structure in the Universe. These initial cosmological inhomogeneities were generated when inflation was ending. They started on minuscule-length scales but they were stretched by the expansion of the Universe to sizes where they could seed galaxies and all other measurable structure,
Am I very, very dim, or does Dr. Randall seem to be switching when these inhomogenieties came about from sentence to sentence? This part is really poorly written and unclear.
I expect cosmology to be a bit hard to wrap my head around, but I don't think this is cosmology's fault.
