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1. INTRODUCTION

This is the 9th International Workshop on "Neutrino Telescopes", and during each such meetings there have been reviews (in several instances given by me, I believe) of our current cosmological state of knowledge. It is testimony to the remarkable progress in observational cosmology that every one of these past reviews contained serious incorrect conclusions (and I expect that this review will be no exception!). Indeed, the last decade has witnessed several remarkable transformations in our knowledge of the current state of our universe, including the value of fundamental cosmological parameters. The good news is that the actual values we seem to be converging on are ridiculous. Thus, our increased empirical knowledge has gone hand in hand with increased theoretical confusion. For theorists and observers alike, nothing could be more exciting.

In order to make some attempt to have this review appear less boring than it actually is, I have decided to group the cosmological parameters in terms of three general themes, harking back to the famous book of Hermann Weyl, the title of which nicely encompasses the business of modern cosmology.

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