Throughout history, curiosity has driven humankind to explore our world, always reaching past the known to discover what lies beyond. Over the years, technological advances have opened ever-farther horizons, and more and more of the Universe has come within the compass of human knowledge. By careful observational study, scientists have developed a remarkably detailed empirical understanding of the physical structure and evolution of the Cosmos from its beginnings up to the present. At the same time, the human drive to make sense of what we in perceive in the world has led to the development of scientific theories. In cosmology as in other branches of physical science, the goal of theory is to develop mathematical models that interpret and explain existing empirical data, and to make predictions that may falsify or test the limits of a proposed model. Contemporary cosmological theory has been able to explain many of the amazing aspects of the Universe around us -- including why the most distant astronomical objects recede at nearly the speed of light, why we live among planets, stars, and galaxies rather than a uniform ``soup'' of diffuse matter, and why the Cosmos everywhere is filled with pervasive low-energy background radiation. However, many mysteries -- such as the nature of the ``dark matter'' and ``dark energy'' that vastly outweigh normal visible matter -- remain unsolved.
In this course, we will cover the development of scientific study of the Universe from its early beginnings up to the successes and challenges of forefront research taking place today. Along the way, we will explore the theories of relativity that Einstein first introduced 100 years ago, revolutionizing our conception of space and time, and underpinning the modern theory of cosmology as we now know it.
The course is intended for non-science majors and assumes high-school-level algebra, and either ASTR 100 or 101 as a prerequisite.