Introduction to Cosmology

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

A course primarily for engineering and science students who have completed the introductory physics sequence and who want to know more about what has traditionally been taught in the next course in the introductory sequence, modern physics. Also, open to any university students who have the necessary prerequisites and who have completed an introductory calculus-based physics sequence. Relativity, quantum mechanics, and big bang cosmology will be introduced. The course will emphasize understanding concepts and use appropriate physics and mathematics to explain and understand new ideas about the fluidity of space-time and the paradoxes of relativity and quantum mechanics. Open questions about the concepts will be discussed so students appreciate that new knowledge is still being created. This course will survey how new discoveries in astrophysics, quantum mechanics, and cosmology have advanced our understanding about our world. This course is appropriate for students interested in the link between modern physics and astronomy, cosmology, information science, and leading-edge engineering.