Cosmology (SCE 06)

  • Day and time: Thursday 12:30 - 13:30
    Weekly
  • Length of course: 2 terms. Autumn (10 Weeks), Spring (10 Weeks)
  • Number of places: 20
  • Start date: 10 October 2024
  • Description:

    The evolution of the Universe from the Big Bang to the far future and the experimental evidence supporting it. The course will cover: 1) Introduction and the Cast of Characters 2) the Cosmic Microwave background 3) Big Bang Nucleosynthesis 4) the first seconds before Big Bang Nucleosynthesis 5) The end of the dark ages and cosmic dawn; the first stars and first galaxies 6) the synthesis of the chemical elements  7) dark matter 8) dark energy and the far future 9) the Standard Model of Cosmology 10) black holes and relationships of quantum mechanics to general relativity. The course will deal with the phenomena without advanced mathematics. The course has been evolved to cover implications of JWST data on Hubble tension, structure formation, and SMBH evolution, experiments to identify dark matter, the multiverse; time, space and entropy and the presentation of the material slowed down to allow more time for discussion.

  • Format: Lecture

  • Tutor: Alan Richardson
  • I am a Cambridge Mathematics graduate. Since retirement I have been investigating what we know in cosmology and why we think we know it from a non-mathematical physical viewpoint.


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