The Sound of Quantum Fluctuations in the Early Universe

                                Peter Shor


Pythagoras listened to the universe
and heard the music of the spheres.

Philo the Jewish philosopher heard
the mystic Word
spoken by God
resounding in his ears.

Newton and Leibniz listened, and heard clockwork,
the clack and whir
of innumerable gears.

And the astrophysicist—
what is it she hears?
Could it be the echoes of quantum fluctuations,
still reverberating
after thirteen billion years?