Thirty years ago, observational cosmology consisted of the search for two numbers: Ho, the rate of expansion of the universe at the position of the Galaxy; and qo, the deceleration parameter. Twenty years ago, the discovery of the relic radiation from the Big Bang produced another number, 3oK. But it is the past decade which has seen the enormous development in both observational and theoretical cosmology. The universe is known to be immeasurably richer and more varied than we had thought. There is growing acceptance of a universe in which most of the matter is not luminous. Nature has played a trick on astronomers, for we thought we were studying the universe. We now know that we were studying only the small fraction of it that is luminous. I suspect that this talk this evening is the first IAU Discourse devoted to something that astronomers cannot see at any wavelength: Dark Matter in the Universe.
Editorial note to: Georges Lemaître, The beginning of the world from the point of view of quantum theory