Hidden Pieces: The LHC and our Dark Universe

This talk raises and addresses the question of why humans perform fundamental research, by noting the fundamental questions our species (and perhaps other species) have raised thrughout time. It then gives a snap history of how we have gone about trying to address these questions from early telescopes and microscopes to LIGO and the LHC. It attempts to summarise our knowledge to this point (in a few slides), then poses the questions we are asking the LHC (and future) experiments to answer, including: Why fundamental particles have mass (seemingly answered by Brout, Englert, Higgs and the LHC) Dark energy Missing antimatter Compositeness Gravity and extra dimensions Dark matter This is summarised by concluding our universe is a beer. The final question of whether or not humans will ever be able to answer these questions is left open-ended. However, that we will always try to answer them is a forgone conclusion, as we will not survive if we don't. Cheers. Talk presented in numerous places. This version prepared for Queensland University of Technology.