Dark Matter and Dark Energy: Summary and Future Directions

Abstract

This paper reviews the progress reported at this Royal Society Discussion Meeting and advertizes some possible future directions in our drive to understand dark matter and dark energy. Additionally, a first attempt is made to place in context the exciting new results from the WMAP satellite, which were published shortly after this Meeting. In the first part of this review, pieces of observational evidence shown here that bear on the amounts of dark matter and dark energy are reviewed. Subsequently, particle candidates for dark matter are mentioned, and detection strategies are discussed. Finally, ideas are presented for calculating the amounts of dark matter and dark energy, and possibly relating them to laboratory data.