This is an archived course. A more recent version may be available at ocw.mit.edu.

 

Readings

Required Textbooks

Buy at Amazon Weinberg, Steven. The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe. 2nd updated ed. New York: Basic Books, 1993. ISBN: 9780465024377. (Paperback)

Buy at Amazon Ryden, Barbara. Introduction to Cosmology. New York: Addison-Wesley, 2002. ISBN: 9780805389128.

Recommended Books

Buy at Amazon Carrigan, R. A., Jr., and W. P. Trower, eds. Particle Physics in the Cosmos: A collection of readings from Scientific American magazine. New York: W. H. Freeman, 1989. ISBN: 9780716719199.

Buy at Amazon Guth, Alan H. The Inflationary Universe. New York: Perseus Books, 1997. ISBN: 9780201149425.

Buy at Amazon Rowan-Robinson, Michael. Cosmology. 3rd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996. ISBN: 9780198518846. (Paperback)

Buy at Amazon Silk, Joseph. The Big Bang. New York: W. H. Freeman & Co., 2000. ISBN: 9780716738787.

More Advanced Reading

There are some excellent graduate-level textbooks on cosmology that you might want to look at. These books are well beyond the level of this course, but I mention them in case any of you become interested in pursuing some topic at a more advanced level. The first two are written from the astrophysical point of view, while the last four describe the early universe from the particle physicists' slant:

Buy at Amazon Peacock, John A. Cosmological Physics. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998. ISBN: 9780521422703. (Paperback)

Buy at Amazon Peebles, P. J. E. Principles of Physical Cosmology. Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1993. ISBN: 9780691019338. (Paperback)

Buy at Amazon Dodelson, Scott. Modern Cosmology. Amsterdam, Boston: Academic Press, 2003. ISBN: 9780122191411.

Buy at Amazon Kolb, Edward W., and Michael S. Turner. The Early Universe. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1989. ISBN: 9780201116038.

Buy at Amazon Linde, Andrei. Particle Physics and Inflationary Cosmology. New York: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1990. ISBN: 9783718604906. (Paperback)

Buy at Amazon Abbott, Laurence F. Inflationary Cosmology. Edited by Laurence F. Abbott and So-Young Pi. Singapore, Philadelphia: World Scientific Publishing Co., 1985. ISBN: 9789971978655. (Paperback) (This is a reprint book of published technical articles.)