Physical cosmology

Cosmology, as a branch of astrophysics, is the study of the universe on the largest scales and at the earliest times. Cosmology involves itself with studying the motions of the celestial bodies and the first cause. For most of human history, it has been a branch of metaphysics. Cosmology as a science originates with the Copernican principle, which implies that celestial bodies obey identical physical laws to those on earth, and Newtonian mechanics, which first allowed us to understand those motions. This is now called celestial mechanics. Physical cosmology, as it is now understood, began with the twentieth century development of Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity and better astronomical observations of extremely distant objects.

References

Popular reading

• {{Book reference | Author=Hawking, Stephen W. | Title=Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes | Publisher=Bantam Books, Inc | Year=1998 | ID=ISBN 0553380168}}
• {{Book reference | Author=Hawking, Stephen W. | Title=Universe in a Nutshell | Publisher=Bantam Books, Inc | Year=2001 | ID=ISBN 055380202X}}
• Simon Singh, Big bang: the origins of the universe, (Fourth Estate, 2005).
• Steven Weinberg, The first three minutes, (Basic Books, 1993).
• Brian Greene, The fabric of the cosmos, (Vintage, 2005).

Textbooks

• S. Dodelson, Modern Cosmology, Academic Press (2003). Released slightly before the WMAP results, this is the most modern introductory textbook.
• E. Harrison, Cosmology: the science of the universe", Cambridge University Press (2000). A relatively nonmathematical textbook.
• {{Book reference | Author=Kutner, Marc | Title=Astronomy: A Physical Perspective | Publisher=Cambridge University Press | Year=2003 | ID=ISBN 0521529271}} An introductory astronomy textbook.
• E. W. Kolb and M. S. Turner, The Early Universe, Addison-Wesley (1990). This is the classic reference for cosmologists.
• A. Liddle, An Introduction to Modern Cosmology, John Wiley (2003).
• A. R. Liddle and D. H. Lyth, Cosmological Inflation and Large-Scale Structure, Cambridge (2000). An introduction to cosmology with a thorough discussion of inflation.
• T. Padmanabhan, Structure formation in the universe, Cambridge University Press (1993). Describes the formation of large-scale structures in detail.
• J. Peacock, Cosmological Physics, Cambridge University Press (1998). An introduction with more background on general relativity and quantum field theory than most.
• P. J. E. Peebles, Principles of Physical Cosmology, Princeton University Press (1993). Peebles' book has a strong historical focus.
• P. J. E. Peebles, The Large-Scale Structure of the Universe, Princeton University Press (1980). The classic work on large scale structure, in particular the discussion of correlation functions.
• M. Rees, New Perspectives in Astrophysical Cosmology, Cambridge University Press (2002).
• S. Weinberg, Gravitation and Cosmology, John Wiley (1971). An older book, but still a standard reference for a lot of the mathematical formalism.