Where do we come from? Perspective from Physics

Prof. Dr. Hitoshi Murayama, Heinrich Hertz Lecture 2022.

It has been a millennia-long question by the human beings, traditionally in the context of religions, philosophy, literature, and art. In recent decades, physics made strides to come up with partial answers to this question. Chemical elements we are made of came from exploding stars, as observed by neutrinos and gravitational waves. Stars were born out of dark matter. Our original seeds came from inflation. I also discuss what progress we anticipate in the near and more distant future.