Back to course documents.
| Week | Date | Topic/Reading Event | Presented by |
| Introduction | |||
| 1 | Jan. 9 | Problems | Norton |
| Jan. 9 | The Absolute Beginner's Guide to Cosmology "Our Universe: What We See" "Newtonian Cosmology" "General Relativity" "Relativistic Cosmology" "Big Bang Cosmology" |
Norton | |
| 2 | Jan. 16 | ...completing what we didn't cover last week The Beginner's Guide to Cosmology Cosmology 001 |
Norton |
| Satellite Probes of the Cosmic
Microwave Background 12 minute movie: http://www.esa.int/spaceinvideos/Videos/2013/03/ESA_Euronews_Planck_maps_the_dawn_of_time Planck Collaboration, "Planck 2015: I. Overview and products and scientific results. https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2016/10/aa27101-15/aa27101-15.html Background: J.-Ch Hamilton, "What have we learned from observational cosmology," Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 46 (2014), pp. 70–85. Ruth Durrer, "The Cosmic Microwave Background: The history of its experimental investigation and its significance for cosmology," https://arxiv.org/abs/1506.01907 |
Norton | ||
| Is there matter there, really? | |||
| 3 |
Jan. 23 | Yun Wang, "The Dark Energy Problem" Ch. 1 in Yun Wang, Dark
Energy. Wiley-VCH Verlag, 2010. Background:Adam Koberinski, "Problems with the cosmological constant problem," http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/14244/ |
Nora Boyd |
| Jan. 23 |
Guido D’Amico, Marc Kamionkowski, and Kris Sigurdson, "Dark Matter
Astrophysics," Ch. 5 in Dark Matter and Dark Energy A Challenge
for Modern Cosmology. Springer 2011 |
Michael Begun |
|
| Gravitational Lensing | |||
| 4 | Jan. 30 | "Dark Matter Astrophysics" completion. | |
| Jan. 30 |
Rachel Mandelbaum, "Weak Lensing for Precision Cosmology," https://arxiv.org/abs/1710.03235 | Siska de Baerdemaeker |
|
| Jan. 30 | (Optional, Added Jan. 26) Merritt, David, "Cosmology and Convention," Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 57 (2017) 41–52. | Norton Notes in pdf, Word |
|
| 5 |
Feb. 6 |
Ian Hacking, "Extragalactic Reality: The Case of Gravitational Lensing," Philosophy of Science, 56 (1989), pp. 555-581. | Willy Penn |
| Feb. 6 |
Sybylle Anderl, "Astronomy and Astrophysics in the Philosophy of Science," https://arxiv.org/abs/1510.03284v1 | Michael Begun |
|
| MOND | |||
| 6 | Feb. 13 | Clowe, Douglas at al. "A Direct Empirical Proof of the Existence of Dark Matter," https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0608407v1 | Siska de Baerdemaeker |
| Feb. 13 | Benoit Famaey et al., "Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND): Observational Phenomenology and Relativistic Extensions," Living Reviews of Relativity, 15, (2012), 10. https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.12942%2Flrr-2012-10.pdf | Gal Ben Porath | |
| Feb. 13 | Inferring to the presence of matter | Norton Notes in pdf, Word |
|
| Simulations in Cosmology |
|||
| 7 |
Feb. 20 | Ruphy, Stéphanie "Limits to Modeling: Balancing Ambition and Outcome in Astrophysics and Cosmology," Simulation & Gaming 42(2) 177–194 | Nora Boyd |
| Feb. 20 | James S. Bullock, Michael Boylan-Kolchin, "Small-Scale Challenges
to the ΛCDM Paradigm," https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.04256 Andrew R. Wetzel et al., "Reconciling dwarf galaxies with ΛCDM cosmology: Simulating a realistic population of satellites around a Milky Way-mass galaxy," https://arxiv.org/abs/1602.05957 |
Gal Ben Porath |
|
| Inflationary Cosmology | |||
| 8 |
Feb. 27 | "The Physics of Eternal Inflation," Appendix in John D. Norton, "Eternal
Inflation: When Probabilities Fail." |
Norton |
| Feb. 27 | "The Inflationary Universe," Ch. 13 in Andrew Liddle, An
Introduction to Modern Cosmology. 2nd ed. Wiley, 2003. (Similar material, more detail, in Andrew Liddle, "An Introduction to Cosmological Inflation," https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9901124v1) Background: Alan Guth, "Inflationary Universe: A Possible Solution to the Horizon and Flatness Problem," Physical Review, 23 (1981), pp. 347-56. |
Siska de Baerdemaeker | |
| Mar. 6 | Spring Break | ||
| Critics of Inflation | |||
| 9 |
Mar. 13 | John Earman and Jesus Mosterin, "A Critical Look at Inflationary Cosmology," Philosophy of Science, 66 (1999), pp. 1-49. | Gal Ben Porath |
| Mar. 13 | Hollands, Stefan and Robert Wald, "An Alternative to Inflation,"
General Relativity and Gravitation, 34 (2002), pp. 2043-55. (Follow up at Hollands, Stefan and Robert Wald, "Comments on Inflation and Alternative Cosmology," https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0210001v1) |
Shahin Kaveh |
|
| 10 |
Mar. 20 | Guth, Alan "Eternal Inflation and Its Implications," Journal
of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical. 40(2007), pp.
6811-26. Section 5.1 in Winitzki, Sergei "Predictions in Eternal Inflation," Notes Phys. 738, 157–191 (2008). |
Shahin Kaveh |
| Mar. 20 | Smeenk, Chris "Predictability crisis in early universe cosmology," Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 46 (2014) 122–133. | Siska de Baerdemaeker | |
| 11 |
Mar. 27 | John Earman, "Trace-Free Gravitational Theory (aka Unimodular
Gravity) for Philosophers." Background reading: Weinberg, Steven "The cosmological constant problem," Reviews of Modern Physics 61(1989): 1-23. Ellis, G. F. R. "The Trace-Free Einstein Equations and Inflation," General Relativity and Gravitation 46(2014): 1619-1-14. arXiv: 1306.3021v3 [gr-qc] |
John Earman |
| Mar. 27 | McCoy Casey D. "The implementation, interpretation, and justification of likelihoods in cosmology," Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 2017 | Gal Ben Porath | |
| A Quantum Measurement Problem in Inflationary Cosmology | |||
| Apr. 3 | Term paper proposal due before seminar | ||
| 12 |
Apr. 3 | Primordial perturbations from inflation, Section 12.2 in Ellis,
Martens and MacCallum, Relativistic Cosmology, Cambridge University
Press, 2012. Section 1.4 only in Linde, Andre "Inflationary Cosmology," Lect. Notes Phys. 738, 1–54 (2008). pp. 2047 to 2049 in Hollands, Stefan and Robert Wald, "An Alternative to Inflation," General Relativity and Gravitation, 34 (2002), pp. 2043-55. |
Shahin Kaveh |
| Apr. 3 | Sudarsky, Daniel "Quantum Origin of Cosmological Structure and Dynamical Reduction Theories," Ch. 17 in Philosophy of Cosmology. Cambridge University Press, 2017. | Willy Penn |
|
| 13 | Apr. 10 | John D. Norton, "Eternal Inflation: When Probabilities Fail." | Norton |
| Global Structure of Spacetime | |||
| Apr. 10 |
John Manchak, "Can we know the global structure of spacetime?" Studies
in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 40 (2009) pp.
53–56. Background for the zealous: Clark Glymour, "Indistinguishable Space-Times and the Fundamental Group" pp. 50-60 in Foundations of Spacetime Theories: Minnesota Studies in Philosophy of Science. Vol. 8. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1977. David Malament, "Observationally Indistinguishable Spacetimes: Comments on Glymour's Paper," pp. 61-80. Robert Geroch, "Prediction in General Relativity," pp. 81- 93. |
Willy Penn |
|
| Apr. 10 |
Orphaned topic John D. Norton, "Observationally Indistinguishable Spacetimes: A Challenge for Any Inductivist." In G. Morgan, ed., Philosophy of Science Matters: The Philosophy of Peter Achinstein. Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 164-176. More: Jeremy Butterfield, "On Under-determination in cosmology," Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 46 (2014), pp. 57–69. |
Norton |
|
| Ellis' Issues | |||
| 14 |
Apr. 17 | George F R Ellis, "Issues in the Philosophy of Cosmology" https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0602280 | |
| Apr. 17 | Section 1-2. All read as background | (all) | |
| Apr. 17 | 3. Issue A. The uniqueness of the Universe 4. Issue B: The large scale of the universe in space and time. 5. Issue C. The unbounded energies in the early universe. 6. Issue D. Explaining the universe--the question of origins |
Michael Begun |
|
| Apr. 17 | 7. Issue E. The universe as the Background for Existence 8. Issue F. The explicit philosophical basis 9. Key Issues 10. Conclusion |
Nora Boyd |
|
| Friday Apr. 27 | Term papers due by midday on paper or 5pm in email. |