MIfA Public Lecture: Keith Olive, University of Minnesota

Over the last few decades, our knowledge of cosmology and the universe around us has exploded. Through a series of land- and space-based observations, it has become possible to identify a Standard Cosmological Model. However, everything we see today was set up in the very early stages of the evolution of the Universe. 

This lecture will explore key events from those early times, starting with the inflationary universe, which began when the universe was an unimaginably small fraction of a second old. It will also cover ideas about the absence of antimatter, the formation of nuclei, and the eventual formation of galaxies and large-scale structures.