Studying the Dark Universe with Galaxy Clustering John Peacock, Professor of Cosmology and Head of the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland

Our most accurate knowledge about the universe and its constituents derives from measuring the deviations from homogeneity. These manifest themselves as anisotropies in the microwave background radiation, and in the large-scale distribution of the galaxies near the current epoch. The observed evolution of these fluctuations requires that the geometry of the universe be very close to the boundary between open and closed, and that about 75% of its energy density be contributed by a completely uniform "dark energy". This talk will review how these conclusions were reached, and will look to the future. The tool of large-scale structure, which has been so successful, can be extended in order to measure very precisely the properties of dark energy - or to tell us whether it is an illusion that indicates the need to replace Einstein's theory of relativistic gravitation.