Physical Cosmology

4 credits

An exploration of topics in modern cosmology. Topics covered include measuring cosmological distances, age, density, and size of the universe; the Big Bang and inflation; primordial nucleosynthesis, the origin and fluctuations of the cosmic microwave background; dark matter, dark energy, and the formation of galaxies and large-scale structure in an expanding universe. Prerequisites: PHYS 2A/2AR-B-C-D or 4A-B-C-D-E.