What are the prerequisites for cosmology?

[johntitor]

if someone could tell me the math and science prerequisites then that would be pretty cool, also some books to read once I have met those prerequisites.

 

[COLGeek]

Are you seeking reading materials or prepping for a course? Please clarify.

 

[johntitor]

Are you seeking reading materials or prepping for a course? Please clarify.

Uhm I dont think either, I'm more asking what branches of science and level of math I need for cosmology.

 

[marcin]

Course Catalogue | The Theoretical Minimum

theoreticalminimum.com

The Theoretical Minimum - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Special Relativity and Classical Field Theory
General Relativity
Cosmology

 

[johntitor]

Course Catalogue | The Theoretical Minimum

theoreticalminimum.com

The Theoretical Minimum - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Special Relativity and Classical Field Theory
General Relativity
Cosmology

thank you.

 

[COLGeek]

Uhm I dont think either, I'm more asking what branches of science and level of math I need for cosmology.

For college? If so, look at the college's course catalog or program website. There you should find prerequisite info.

Start here (as an example): https://cse.umn.edu/mifa/undergrad

And another: https://physics.northwestern.edu/undergraduate/courses/catalog.html

 

[Classical Motion]

I would recommend 2 semesters of wet chemistry for any scientific study or knowledge. Not just for the chemistry knowledge, but for the academic discipline of study and measurement. After 2, some want more. Some will never touch it again.

Chemistry is not only the best organizing and bean counting system ever, the investigating logic concepts can be applied to many other fields of study. It’s sorta a way of thinking. A logic pattern.

Chemistry will help you in any field of study. Even thought I disagree with their deep fundamentals. Chemistry is a sure thing.

Just from my experience. Doesn’t work for all. Some can’t get into it. But it’s neat.

 

[promytius]

Internet search 1 second: "Your qualification should be in a physics-, mathematics- or astronomy-based subject, or a subject with significant mathematical or physical content, and include modules in calculus, differential equations, mechanics, electrodynamics and quantum mechanics."

 

[marcin]

Chemistry will help you in any field of study. Even thought I disagree with their deep fundamentals. Chemistry is a sure thing.

Your disagreement is most interesting to me. What are these deep fundamentals that you disagree with?

 

[promytius]

If you become a chemist, you will have to put up with these and more:
Don’t trust atoms, they make up everything.

Did you know that you can cool yourself to -273.15˚C and still be 0k?

H2O is water and H2O2 is hydrogen peroxide. What is H2O4?
Drinking.

Have you heard the one about a chemist who was reading a book about helium?
He just couldn’t put it down.

How about the chemical workers … are they unionized?

Did you know that oxygen went for a second date with potassium?
How did it go?
It went OK2!

Why do chemists like nitrates so much?
They’re cheaper than day rates.

...apologies...

 

[Classical Motion]

I think the measurements of the periodic table can be explained with just an electron and a proton.

I believe our current theories of light, mass, energy, gravity, time and space...... to be bogus big time.

But other than that science is pretty cool.

 

[marcin]

...apologies...

The first chemist's name was AL.

 

[Classical Motion]

Chemistries first goal was not knowledge. It was gold.

 

[Helio]

Uhm I dont think either, I'm more asking what branches of science and level of math I need for cosmology.

General Relativity involves math even Einstein could not figure out on his own. It's very difficult.

The history behind today's modern BBT is wonderful to study. So, you might begin with understanding general cosmology by reading non-math books such as...

1)Big Bang; Simon Singh

2) Discovering the Expanding Universe; Harry Nussbaumer and Lydia Bieri

3) The Day We Found The Universe: Marcia Bartusiak (2009)

4) At The Edge of Time – Dan Hooper (CERN) 2019

5) Cosmology’s Century -- P. J.E. Peebles 2022

The last one (5) is loaded with math snippets, as well as offers some insights into the early ideas. Peebles is a famous physicist and cosmologist.

 

[Gibsense]

if someone could tell me the math and science prerequisites then that would be pretty cool, also some books to read once I have met those prerequisites.

Prerequisites: Insatiable Curiosity about Everything + imaginative challenge as you read
"Spacetime Physics" Taylor & Wheeler.

 

[G_x0a]

Getting a general picture of the timeline of physics is the first thing, right?!

Maxwell's methods then Einstein with relativity - the firm belief for classical physics, then the Hesseinberg particle physicists ...etc... with the standard particle model of modern physics. A general and thorough view might be useful to know the limits of the current problem, I think.

As for me, I am a beginner in the theory of everything, it is a bit difficult to use google translate to understand what you guys are saying but I will get used to it and be fluent because the great things happening here are worth it and I am really excited. Warm greetings to this wonderful community.

 

[Helio]

Getting a general picture of the timeline of physics is the first thing, right?!

Maxwell's methods then Einstein with relativity - the firm belief for classical physics, then the Hesseinberg particle physicists ...etc... with the standard particle model of modern physics. A general and thorough view might be useful to know the limits of the current problem, I think.

As for me, I am a beginner in the theory of everything, it is a bit difficult to use google translate to understand what you guys are saying but I will get used to it and be fluent because the great things happening here are worth it and I am really excited. Warm greetings to this wonderful community.

History helps with understanding but it only helps; it's not required.

For the BBT, I encourage those that want to begin their path of understanding by not looking back 13.8 billion years ago, but by starting with the universe of today. It was today's universe that helped Lemaitre recognize his theory known today as the BBT.

If you speak French, you might want to read his 1927 paper.

He put three things together to introduce the world to the first model of expansion for the universe, not of things flying through space but spacetime itself expanding.

Here are his three ingredients:
1) The data from Vesto M Slipher (Flagstaff Az), who found the first redshifts for spiral nebulae (galaxies). This was in the early 1900s.
2) Using those galaxies referenced by Slipher he determined their distance using a formula determined by Hubble.
3) He recognized that the farther a galaxy was away from us , the faster it was moving and proportionately so, as if the universe itself was expanding, contrary to the views of all others, including Einstein and de Sitter. His great knowledge of GR (General Relativity) allowed him to hypothesize that GR allowed this expansion. His French paper, after statistical messaging of the results, gave the very first expansion rate (575 kps/Mpc).

That's it. No cmbr, no early galactic morphologies, no singularity, no Inflation, etc.

But, as one might expect for a model of the entire universe and everything in it, it made many predictions.

As astronomers found evidence favoring those predictions, his theory began its path of acceptance, though there were bumps along the way, of course. It was the discovery of the cmbr that won over the majority of astronomers and cosmologist. This took about another 40 years.

 

[Classical Motion]

In my hayseed opinion, the concept of a present universe is nonsensical.

That’s because we can not sense or detect the present universe. No sense of it.

It might be very dark and rarefied at this time. Or even contracting.

The sensed observation and result is the most ancient possible. Could not be delayed further.

And our position cements that. We will never observe or measure the present universe.

It’s physically impossible. With this pathetic speed of light. Same problem with G detectors. Old data.

We need an instant sense. And only a connected rotation can do that. A rotating shaft. Much faster than c. It’s instant. No matter the distance. Zero propagation time.

A camshaft works because it’s instant with one time.

So, instant and recent observational sense will remain local.

We have no idea of what is out there, or what is coming. If the MW heart super novas, we wouldn’t know it til it’s here. And we’re cooked. The first to arrive would be x-ray and gamma and possibly G shock before/with visible(observation) light. Years before matter debris.

Just my guess. No expertise.

 

[Helio]

The exciting thing for me in astronomy is how credible some things observed and explained are. There are the unknown things, of course, including those that can be observed but lacking in a proper explanation.

But once Slipher began measuring redshift values on his very small spectrographs, after spending up to 40 hours or more on cold nights to get even one, then we had our first objective evidence that needed explanation.

His redshift data only indicated radial motions (toward or away from us) of the spiral nebulae (galaxies). It didn't indicate that spacetime was expanding. Indeed, in 1914, more than a year before Einstein gave us General Relativity, he presented 15 of these to the Astronomical and Astrophysical Society of America. [That same meeting was when they changed the name to the American Astronomical Society.]

Some, even decades after Lemaitre's model was introduced, felt that the galaxies could simply be flying away from us. The argument here is that, in an explosion, objects moving the fastest would necessarily be farther away than the slower objects.

But, this implied that the universe exploded into space located in our front yard.

Other discoveries revealed greater reason to accept the expansion model. see Big Bang Bullets II

 

[Classical Motion]

The shifts indicate an old, high velocity. Not close by. Indicating a past shift. If it were still expanding, watch just one far star…. It should shift more during a yr of that fast acceleration of expansion.

So, two possibilities. Past shift or still shifting. A steady shift or a changing shift? At those speeds, real time shift should be detectable.

Does any know which it is? And if it is a changing shift…… is it increasing at that same rate in all directions?

AI is needed for such data comparisons.