Frontiers of the Universe: What do we know, what do we understand?

Abstract

In this talk I summarize the topics addressed during the conference. We have discussed the most relevant cosmological observations of the last say 10 years and their implications for our understanding of the Universe. My finding throughout this meeting has been that it is amazing how our knowledge of cosmological parameters has improved during the last years. It comes as a surprise to many, that the simplest inflationary model of adiabatic perturbations agrees well with present data. But it is frustrating that we have not made any progress in identifying the dark matter, in contrary, we have supplemented it by what we call the 'dark energy', a gravitationally and esthetically repulsive component which is even more mysterious than the dark matter. We have no understanding about the origin of these two most abundant energy components of the present Universe.