<< CosmoTeaching

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Kosmologia 0800-KOSMO = Cosmology course

0800-KOSMO

when/where

• lecture @10:00-12:00 Thu
  • face-to-face: sala 25 = A.1.34 @IF
  • online - BigBlueButtonHints
• 0800-KOSMO: EXAM: Thur XX June 2025 09:00-16:00 @Institute of Astronomy, Piwnice, Room 48; 7 hours = maximum time; a good student can finish in 2 hours
• 0800-PA-LASCUNIV: EXAM: Fri XX June 2025 09:00-16:00 @Institute of Astronomy, Piwnice, Room 48; 7 hours = maximum time; a good student can finish in 2 hours

email; mailing lists

• main communication - small-group non-public email
• you may want to join the cosmo-pl list for circulating cosmology announcements interesting to the PL cosmology community

what

• main lectures
  • pdf: Cosmology_30h_lecture.pdf or @Wikimedia (or @zenodo OLD: needs updating)
  • live git source: https://codeberg.org/boud/cosmology_lecture | archived source: swh:1:rev:de3d89c9541d8a048d4adcc585b7d6000412e1a2
  • physical cosmology: hot big bang model (FLRW model, Hubble–Lemaître expansion, cosmic microwave background, primordial nucleosynthesis), Friedmann equations, Einstein static solution, Einstein-de Sitter model, scale-factor--time--redshift relations, comoving arc length, angular diameter distance, luminosity distance, cosmological paradoxes, LambdaCDM model, general-relativistic models and their observational foundations, galaxy formation
    • hot big bang model (Friedmann–Lemaître–Robertson–Walker model of spacetime as a family of simplified spacetimes that satisfy the Einstein equation);
    • Hubble-Lemaitre expansion (Lemaître 1927) a normalised time derivative of the scale factor and as a key observation, cosmic microwave background (McKellar 1941 + Adams 1941) as a key observation, primordial nucleosynthesis as a key observation);
    • derivation of the Friedmann equations;
    • the Einstein static solution as an exact solution satisfying mainstream views of the observations of the 1910s;
    • the Einstein-de Sitter model as an exact solution with no initial singularity;
    • derivation of scale-factor--time--redshift relations;
    • geometrically meaningful derivation of the comoving arc length (areal radius), angular diameter distance, and luminosity distance;
    • cosmological paradoxes;
    • LambdaCDM model versus general-relativistic models and their observational foundations;
    • galaxy formation
• structure formation
  • reviews of linear structure formation
    • ArXiv:astro-ph/0112551 - Large-Scale Structure of the Universe and Cosmological Perturbation Theory, F. Bernardeau, S. Colombi, E. Gaztanaga, R. Scoccimarro - big paper
    • Daniel Baumann, "Cosmology - Part III Mathematical Tripos", (archived) Chapter 4 for perturbation theory
    • http://sancerre.as.arizona.edu/~fan/Home/AST541_files/SphericalCollapse.pdf - Xiaohui Fan - 20 pp
    • more advanced:
      • CdsAds:1989PhRvD..40.1804E - Ellis & Bruni 1989
      • ArXiv:astro-ph/9311041 - Durrer 1993
      • CdsAds:1984PThPS..78....1K - Kodama & Sasaki 1984
  • non-linear structure formation: GalaxyFormationCourse
• FLRWEquationsGR

prerequisite: SR+GR

• SRandGR

summary of modern cosmology

• AstroPh:0602280 - George Ellis - Issues in the Philosophy of Cosmology - this is a proper scientific approach, i.e. serious philosophy explained in simple (scientific) words

online intros to cosmology

• theory.physics.helsinki.fi/~cosmology Syksy Räsänen (archived)
  
  ((C) 2019 CC-BY-NC, xkcd.com/2205 )
• Piattella 2018 377pp book - ArXiv:1803.00070 - missing: cosmic topology, inhomogeneous cosmology

exam

• calibration: lecturer should be able to do full exam in 60 minutes with a score of at least 4.5 (out of 5)
• fixed day/time, expected up to 3 hours, allowed up to 5 hours, at KRA as in a traditional exam; repeat exam possible in September as in official program
• exam uses a selection of wims exercises made available in exercise mode, i.e. the questions are different but statistically drawn from the same distribution in a multi-dimensional parameter space with N >> 1 parameters
• same as for exercises: score rounded to nearest number in the set {0, 2, 3, 3.5, 4, 4.5, 5}
• physics/astro/maths constants: exact: metre-to-second conversion (p129) 1 s = 299792458 m; 1 AU = 149597870700 m; approximate: π 3.14159265359
• The examination for this subject requires verification that the students are working through examination questions using verifiable tools. Purely online methods of verifying the students' knowledge are insufficient for this course, so a face-to-face "traditional" exam is required. Experience has shown that some students use scientifically invalid methods.

temporary isolated machine

Starting in 2025, the exam will be conducted on a computer running a Debian GNU/Linux operating system with no internet connection. This computer will have a server with the statistically same set of exercises as you have available during the semester.

• differences wrt exercises
  • stronger prerequisite relation between exercises - you must do the easier exercises before being allowed to try the harder ones
  • more severe scoring system: instead of
  • no internet acccess
  • no access to hand calculators, mobile phones, laptops, or other private computers (mobile phone use OK if you are taking a break away from your screen)
  • fresh shell account - no access to personal notes or scripts; the lecture pdfs will be available in your account
  • you will have the usual FOSS tools: emacs, vim, bash, less, grep, awk, sed, octave, python, numpy, scipy, maxima, gcc, gfortran
  • you will have these files in your guest shell account with md5sums:
    • 47e54ad34928b502b86046f3fda15ddf cosmdist-0.3.12-3ea40c1.tar.gz
    • 757b6cef51acfbd24e5b8d6fcfd2a0c7 Cosmology_30h_lecture.pdf
    • 200b400f0704b6dfb04fef366f98f266 gr_140407.pdf
    • 15b0cb0a9dbc4508277f5513a94290e6 sr_240412.pdf
    • 5a053da1fed410dda159fe7c7a077f72 SI_math_constants
  • physics/astro/maths constants: exact: metre-to-second conversion (p129) 1 s = 299792458 m; 1 AU = 149597870700 m; approximate: π 3.14159265359 - these are given in the file SI_math_constants
  • you will need to show the examiner the "My Score" page when you are satisfied with your grade and ready to have your score written to usosweb.

An example of the software versions is the following, though the actual versions may be more recent:

$ dpkg -l |awk '{print $1,$2,$3}' |grep -E " (octave|maxima|python3(|-numpy|-scipy)|emacs|vim-tiny|xpdf|evince|gcc|gfortran) "
ii emacs 1:28.2+1-15+deb12u4
ii evince 43.1-2+b1
ii gcc 4:12.2.0-3
ii gfortran 4:12.2.0-3
ii maxima 5.46.0-11
ii octave 7.3.0-2
ii python3 3.11.2-1+b1
ii python3-numpy 1:1.24.2-1+deb12u1
ii python3-scipy 1.10.1-2
ii vim-tiny 2:9.0.1378-2+deb12u2
ii xpdf 3.04+git20220601-1+b2

exercise mode

• exercise mode:
  • Scoring is enabled by default - but this doesn't count for any official zaliczenie!
  • Scoring is not limited by IP range - you can practice from Spain or Fiji if you wish.
  • link to wims: https://cosmo.torun.pl/wims - the exercise mode sheets have a warning in Polish ,,(bez zaliczenia!)" to remind you that your scores in exercise mode do not count officially
    • Choose Students' area in the left-hand column of the WIMS interface.

5.0 grade points on WIMS - how it's calculated

• You can get a grade of up to a maximum of 5.0 points from WIMS exercises:
  • where
    • is the percentage done for a given "sheet" - let us normalise this to the range from 0.0 i 1.0
    • is the "quality" - in the range from 0.0 to 1.0; the power of 0.3 implies that the effect of is weak unless the "quality" parameter is very low
  • how to check your current score:
    • home
      • My scores
        • Global average: something out of 5. Here, something is your total amount of points
• The formula for a single exercise done m times, is po m razy, gdzie , which is in the range from 0.0 to 1.0. This is a decaying average, with . In other words, the most recent tries at a realisation of an exercise have the most influence on the score for that exercise.
• Chromium/Chrome bug: As of 2020 to 2024, chromium/chrome browser software has a bug that prevents the display of some of the exercises. Firefox is one browser without the bug. In any case, Chrome is like a two-way mirror with little chance of protecting your privacy (despite EU regulations).

-- BoudRoukema - 31 Oct 2013 + ...