Cosmology

Cosmology is the study of the Universe as a whole entity, including the origin, evolution, and ultimate fate of the entire Universe. In this course we will study the Big Bang, inflation, primordial nucleosynthesis, the cosmic microwave background, the formation of galaxies, and large-scale structure. The course will link observations to theory in order to address some of the current open questions in cosmology such as: what are the forms of matter and energy distributed in the Universe? What is the expansion rate of the Universe and how has it changed with time? What is the age of the Universe? What is the shape of the Universe? (PHYS 0201 and PHYS 0212 and either PHYS 0202 or PHYS 0111) 3 hrs. lect.