The Standard Model of particle physics is a highly
successful theory, but one that is known to be incomplete.
Experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN are searching
for evidence of `New Physics', phenomena that cannot be explained in
the Standard Model and hence point the way to a higher theory.
Flavour physics, in particular the study of rare and suppressed
processes involving beauty hadrons, provides a very powerful tool in
this quest. The Large Hadron Collider beauty (LHCb) detector is the
world's pre-eminent flavour physics experiment, and has produced a
host of exciting and illuminating results in this sector. After a
brief introduction to the problems of the Standard Model, and the role
of flavour physics, the LHCb experiment will be described, and some
recent measurements will be presented. Intriguingly, some of these
measurements show tension with the predictions of the Standard Model
and may turn out to be the first hints of the New Physics that lies
beyond. Future prospects will be discussed, in particular the further
evolution of the LHCb experiment.