PhD Colloquium: Mairi Sakellariadou (King's College London)

Looking at the starry sky, several questions come to our mind, such as "What is the Universe made of?", "How was it created?", "What, if anything, happened before the Big Bang?", "How does the Universe evolve and what is its ultimate fate?". To address these puzzling questions, we need a blend of theoretical developments and observational data. This seminar will discuss the observational and experimental tools we have at our disposal, as well as the two pillars of theoretical physics, namely General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. Our current understanding of the early universe will be discussed, and the need for a fundamental theory, dubbed Quantum Gravity, will be highlighted, in order to resolve the remaining open questions.