Another good book, which you might use in addition, is Andrew Liddle, "An Introduction to Modern Cosmology", John Wiley & Sons Ltd. (about 40.- $).
Another compact representation of the important mathematics in cosmology is given in Michael Berry "Principles of Cosmology and Gravitation", Cambridge University Press (about 25.-$).
As a preparation and because it is a nice book to read, you might want to try Steven Weinberg "The First Three Minutes", BasicBooks (about 11.- $). This is a good book to read on the beach or during free time. And with the contents you can impress your friends on parties (note:cosmology is always a good party topic as long as you keep it simple).
For general physics there are a lot of books, e.g. Tipler "Modern Physics" or Marcelo Alonso, Edward J. Finn "Physics" (Pearson Addison Wesley). As you already joined Introductory Physics I & II, you will have a book like this.
There are many sources to get information. The internet is one of them - but be careful and do not trust everything you read there. Even Wikipedia is not always right! It is always better to use a citeable reference, e.g. a scientific journal or text book. You find resources in the UMBC library (also on-line!). New astrophysical articles can be searched and retrieved from the astro-ph preprint server. Access to mostly all astrophysical journal articles is available through ADS.
In the following table colour coding is used to indicate the level of complexity the articles have:
- basic knowledge. You do not have to read this article/book/wepage, but you should know the basics. Either from this source or from another.
- detailed description of topics discussed in the lecture. Very often review articles. Read as far as you understand them.
- articles about recent research. This is to see what the problems in this particular field are about today. Do not worry if you do not understand much - try to understand what the problem is and how the authors solved them.
| Lecture # | Topic | Literature |
| 1 | Introduction |
The Nobel Prize in Physics - Articles |
| 2 | Fundamental observations |
Webpage: Electromagnetic Spectrum The Dual Nature of Light as Reflected in the Nobel Archive Olbers's paradox and the spectral intensity of the extragalactic background light |
| 3 | Distances in the Universe |
Herter (webpage) Stellar Parallax NASA webpage: Cepheids Wikipedia entry about Redshift Distance units in Astronomy Wikipedia entry about Elementary Particles |
| 4 | Black Body radiation |
Ryden ("Introduction to Cosmology"): Section 2.4 webpage: Black Body Radiation webpage: Black Body Radiation (more detailed) |
| 5 | Cosmic Microwave Background |
Ryden ("Introduction to Cosmology"): Chapter 2 NASA webpage: Tests of the Big Bang: The CMB |
| 6 | Equivalent Principle |
Ryden ("Introduction to Cosmology"): Chapter 3 The original article by H. P. Robertson from 1935: Kinematics and World-Structure
|
| 7 | General Relativity |
More about Albert Einstein |
| 8 | Dark Energy |
Ryden ("Introduction to Cosmology"): Chapter 4 Dark Energy (video of a lecture, 178 MByte; you need a decent connection in order to download this one) Dark Energy and Some Alternatives: a Brief Overview
|
| 9 | Cosmological models |
Ryden ("Introduction to Cosmology"): Chapter 5 (up to Section 5.3) |
| 11 | Single Component Universe |
Ryden ("Introduction to Cosmology"): Chapter 5 |
| 12 | Multiple Component Universe |
Ryden ("Introduction to Cosmology"): Chapter 6 Cosmology Calculator - try out different universe models and see what happens |
| 13 | The Benchmark Model |
A Century of Cosmology - small summary paper by E. L. Wright (2006) |
| 15 | Super Novae Type Ia |
Ryden ("Introduction to Cosmology"): Chapter 7 Measurements of Omega and Lambda from 42 High-Redshift Supernovae - paper by Perlmutter et al. (1999) on using Super Novae Type Ia to constrain cosomological models Can Lambda be determined from nearby Type Ia Supernovae?, article by Erni & Tammann (2006)
|
| 16 | Observations |
Accurate Extra-Galactic Distances and Dark Energy: Anchoring the Distance Scale with Rotational Parallaxes |
| 17 | Dark Matter |
Ryden ("Introduction to Cosmology"): Chapter 8 Conservative Estimates of the Mass of the Neutrino from Cosmology - what can we say about the mass of neutrinos? Paper by Zunckel & Ferreira (2006) |
| 18 | Summary |
Ryden ("Introduction to Cosmology"): Chapter 5, 6, 7, and 8 Summary as preparation for the second midterm exam (PowerPoint file) (3 MByte) Summary as preparation for the second midterm exam (PDF file) (12 MByte) |
| 19 | Cosmic Microwave Background |
Nobel Prize in Physics 2006 for John Mather and George Smoot "for their discovery of the blackbody form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation" The COBE Mission - paper about the satellite mission by Boggess et al. 1992
|
| 20 | Cosmic Microwave Background |
Ryden ("Introduction to Cosmology"): Chapter 9 The WMAP mission - NASA webpage WMAP Three Year Results: Implications for Cosmology - paper by Spergel et al. (2006) |
| 25 | Inflation |
Ryden ("Introduction to Cosmology"): Chapter 11 The acceleration and expansion of the Universe (video of a lecture, 211 MByte; you need a decent connection in order to download this one) |
| 26 | Big Questions |
Our Universe, one of many? (video of a lecture, 175 MByte; you need a decent connection in order to download this one) |
| 27 | Summary of the course |
Ryden ("Introduction to Cosmology"): Chapter 2-11 Summary as preparation for the final exam (PowerPoint file) (3 MByte) Summary as preparation for the final exam (PDF file) (11 MByte) Ten things to remember from PHYS 316 "Cosmology and Astrophysics" a summary paper by Juan Garcia-Bellido (2005) about the present status of the Standard Cosmological Model. |
| Bonus | X-ray astronomy |
Popular talk by Volker Beckmann at the planetarium of Louisville University: "The Violent Universe - NASA's high energy missions": Video of the presentation (Real Player)
|