Notes
Outline
Observational Evidence of Creation
Observational Evidence of Creation
Conceptual Framework for the Big Bang
Big Bang Nucleosynthesis
The Recombination Era
All Around Us – The Fireball
The Cosmic Background Radiation
Imperceptible structure then
à galaxies today
The Formation of Large Scale Structure
Dark Matter  - rotation curves
Dark Matter – cluster speeds
Dark Matter :gravitational lensing
What could the dark matter be?
WIMPS and Cold Dark Matter
A Brief History of Time
The Horizon Sets the Limit of the Observable Universe
Cosmic Microwave Background  Anisotropy spectrum
Mysteries in the Big Bang Theory
The Horizon Problem
The cosmic background in all directions has the same temperature, yet opposite sides of the sky are not in “causal contact” (they are outside each other’s horizons). The largest COBE structures are also larger than their own horizons!
The Flatness Problem
The geometry of the Universe now appears to be flat. But it has expanded by a factor of 1060, so at the beginning it had to be flat to within a factor of 10-60! And yet it had to have enough density fluctuations to produce today’s structure. How was that arranged?
The Matter Problem
Matter and antimatter should be created in exactly equal amounts, but they weren’t (by a tiny bit).
The Creation Problem
How did spacetime suddenly spring into being, with lots of mass and energy, and violently expand?
The Solution : Inflation!
The Flatness Problem Solved
Another measure of curvature
Exploding White Dwarfs as “Standard candles”
A Major Surprise!
W-MAP
Density and Composition of the Universe
The History and Fate of the Universe
The History and Fate of the Universe