This course offers an introduction to astrophysical cosmology. Concepts of the expansion of the Universe, curvature of the Universe and redshift will be studied in detail. Topics explored include the Big Bang; inflation; primordial element synthesis; the cosmic microwave background; the formation of galaxies; and large-scale structure.
Pace Of Quantitative Training:
The lectures will include some discussion of about approaches to quantitative problem solving. The problem sets are specifically designed to improve your problem solving skills and have a quantitative and qualitative portion. You will learn how to convert a word problem into mathematical form and then solve the equation. This is something that is continually worked on throughout the course. There also will be ample opportunity to discuss the quantitative problems in the discussion sections, in the on-line forum, and in office hours.
Expected Quantitative Preparation:
Astrophysics deals with physical quantities not just numbers. The dimension of a quantity is equally important as its size and some familiarity with units and unit conversions (e.g. convert miles per hour to meters per second) would be helpful (though not essential as this type of thing will be covered in the first lecture). The math skills used in this course are all pre-calculus and we will use algebra, geometry, and some trigonometry. Don’t worry if its been a while since you used math to solve problems, we start at a slow pace and build up your problem solving skills as the course progresses. Please talk with the instructor if you have any questions about whether this class is appropriate for you.
Sample Problems:
Problem 1:
Changing units
What is 30 kilometers per hour in meters per second ?
Problem 2:
Without using a calculator, what is the cube root of 6.4*10{-17}?
(you can check your answer on a calculator)
Problem 3:
The universe is thought to be about 14 billion years old. Without using a calculator find a rough estimate of the age of the universe in seconds.