An overview of Cosmology

Cosmology as an exact physical science is of new date, but it has long roots in the past. This essay is concerned with four important themes in the history of cosmological thought which, if taken together, offer a fairly comprehensive account of some of the key developments that have led to the modern understanding of the universe. Apart from the first section, dealing with early views of curved space, it focuses on mainstream cosmology from the expanding universe about 1930 ...

In the standard cosmological theory one uses the Einstein concepts of space and time as were originally introduced for the special theory of relativity and the general relativity theory. According to this approach all physical quantities are described in terms of the continuum spatial coordinates and time. Using general relativity theory a great progress has been made in understanding the evolution of the Universe. Cosmologists usually measure spatial distances and redshifts ...

Cosmology is nowadays going through a true revolution in the quantity and quality of observations that are capable of providing crucial information about the origin and evolution of the universe. In the first years of the next millenium we will have, for the first time in the history of cosmology, a precise knowledge about a handful of parameters that determine our Standard Cosmological Model. This standard model is based on the inflationary paradigm, a period of exponential ...

A brief review of the present-day development of cosmology is presented for mixed physical audience. The universe history is briefly described. Unsolved problems are discussed, in particular, the mystery of the cosmological constant and dark energy, the problems of dark matter, and baryogenesis. A brief discussion of the cosmological role of neutrinos is also given.

The network of cosmological tests is tight enough now to show that the relativistic Big Bang cosmology is a good approximation to what happened as the universe expanded and cooled through light element production and evolved to the present. I explain why I reach this conclusion, comment on the varieties of philosophies informing searches for a still better cosmology, and offer an example for further study, the curious tendency of some classes of galaxies to behave as island u...

These proceedings summarize lectures that were delivered as part of the 2002 and 2003 Theoretical Advanced Study Institutes in elementary particle physics (TASI) at the University of Colorado at Boulder. They are intended to provide a pedagogical introduction to cosmology aimed at advanced graduate students in particle physics and string theory.

Last couple of decades have been the golden age for cosmology. High quality data confirmed the broad paradigm of standard cosmology but have thrusted upon us a preposterous composition for the universe which defies any simple explanation, thereby posing probably the greatest challenge theoretical physics has ever faced. Several aspects of these developments are critically reviewed, concentrating on conceptual issues and open questions. [Topics discussed include: Cosmological ...

Cosmology is very exciting for three reasons. There is a very successful standard model - the hot big bang - which describes the evolution of the Universe from 10^{-2} sec onward. There are bold ideas, foremost among them are inflation and cold dark matter, which can extend the standard cosmology to within 10^{-32} sec of the bang and address some of the most fundamental questions in cosmology. There is a flood of data - from determinations of the Hubble constant to measureme...

This is the summary of two lectures that aim to give an overview of cosmology. I will not try to be too rigorous in derivations, nor to give a full historical overview. The idea is to provide a "taste" of cosmology and some of the interesting topics it covers. The standard cosmological model is presented and I highlight the successes of cosmology over the past decade or so. Keys to the development of the standard cosmological model are observations of the cosmic microwave bac...

The purpose of this work is to review, clarify, and critically analyse modern mathematical cosmology. The emphasis is upon mathematical objects and structures, rather than numerical computations. This paper concentrates on general relativistic cosmology. The opening section reviews and clarifies the Friedmann-Robertson-Walker models of general relativistic cosmology, while Section 2 deals with the spatially homogeneous models. Particular attention is paid in these opening sec...