My lectures follow my textbook, First Principles of Cosmology, fairly closely. However, there are some new sections and the ordering is sometimes different. Each of my Cosmology lecture web pages has a detailed outline and Postscript lecture notes, along with sometimes a Postscript handout summary of important equations or concepts.

• Equivalence and Cosmological Principles
• general relativity
• symmetry, homogeneity, isotropy
• Friedmann-Robertson-Walker model
• curvature, expansion

Outline:

1 OVERVIEW
1.1 Whence Cosmology?
1.2 Vital Statistics
1.3 Astrophysical Units

2 EQUIVALENCE PRINCIPLE
2.1 Principle of Equivalence
    * Theory
    * Experiment
    * Meaning
2.2 Metric

3 COSMOLOGICAL PRINCIPLE
3.1 Isotropy
3.2 Homogeneity
3.3 Evolution
3.4 Robertson-Walker Metric
3.5 Distances and Kinematics (curvature and expansion)

4 DYNAMICS
4.1 Curved Spacetime
    * Coordinate Invariance and Tensors
    * Field Theory of Spin 0,1,2 Fields
    * Equivalence Principle, Gravitational Redshift, and Differential Geometry
4.2 Einstein Field Equations
4.3 Perfect Fluids
4.4 Newtonian Approach

Cosmology I Lecture Notes
Handout:

• Vital Statistics
• Astrophysical Units
• Geometric Units
• Forms of the Robertson-Walker Metric
• Einstein Field Equations

Go to Cosmology II
Go to Cosmology III
Go to Cosmology IV
Go to Cosmology V
Go to Cosmology VI

Go to Schedule
Go to COU 99 Home