Extracting cosmology from the cosmic microwave background radiation

In the next few years, there will be dramatic improvements in our measureme nts of microwave background fluctuations and of the galaxy large-scale stru cture, These observations will test the emerging cosmological "standard mod el": a cold dark matter universe with a cosmological constant and scale-inv ariant adiabatic fluctuations produced by inflation. If the observations co nfirm the model, then we will be able to determine most cosmological parame ters to two significant figures. If the observations are not consistent wit h the model, then we will need to rethink our ideas about the physics of th e early universe.