Just How Important Is WMAP?

We had some prospective grad students visiting Irvine the other day.  I said something about WMAP and one of the prospectives said "What's WMAP?"  Coming from a lay man I can understand, but a physics major!  I was in shock.  Here's why:

First off, "Since 2000, the three most highly cited papers in all of physics and astronomy are WMAP scientific papers." (Emphasis added.)

Second, today WMAP is just a relevant as ever.  I draw your attention to the most cited papers in 2009.  (The first one, Review of Particle Physics, isn't a research article but an "encyclopedia" people quote for values of things like constants. We've discussed this book before.)

In 2009, the #1, #3, #9 and #10 most cited research articles were the WMAP papers.  To be in physics and to not know about WMAP, to me, means you are living under a rock.  There is no experiment in this last decade producing more follow up scientific research!

I point you to two other interesting observations from that list:

First, the #4, #5 and #6 most cited papers from 2009 are other cosmology papers.  That means 7 of the top 10 most cited papers, tracked by Spires, are cosmology papers.  Cosmology is hot baby!

Second, the #2 most cited paper last year is the famous paper by Juan Maldacena introducing the ADS/CFT correspondance.  As pointed out by Peter Woit, at this rate this paper will surpass "Weinberg’s 1967 paper as the most heavily cited particle physics paper of all time."