Most of the Universe is invisible to us. Most of the matter is dark matter, and most of the energy is dark energy. For brief moments, the biggest outputs of energy in the Universe are in gravitational waves. This talk will describe some of what little we know about these dark sides to the Universe, and try to answer some deep questions such as: What would happen if you tried to drink a pint of dark matter? What would happen if you stuck your head in the Large Hadron Collider? What is the fate of the Universe, and the ultimate fate of the atoms in our bodies?
Steve is a Reader in Cosmology at the Open University, specialising in extragalactic surveys of star-forming galaxies. He has written or co-written about 200 papers so far with over 7000 citations in all, and two books, and co-won a 2004 Daiwa Adrian Prize for Anglo-Japanese scientific collaboration. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics, a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and a Chartered Physicist.