A Brief History of the Birth of the Universe

Sunday, 15 February 2015: 10:00 AM-11:30 AM
Room 230A (San Jose Convention Center)
Andrei Linde, Stanford University, Stanford, CA
This talk will provide a quick refresher on the theory of inflation, including a review of the many problems it solves, its observational predictions and their confirmation in numerous experiments such as WMAP and Planck. Then Linde will describe most recent theoretical developments in this area, including the theory of inflationary multiverse and the existing experimental evidence supporting it. Finally, Linde will discuss a potential impact of the search of the gravitational waves on our understanding of the origin of the universe.