ASTR404 – Course Information

Under Construction

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WARNING: This page is still under construction. Even though I did not put in false information deliberately, some things here are subject to change. I will add more material and clarify some points as they become definite. Feel free to ask, if in doubt. At this point I only copy-pasted a previous syllabus and edited a few parts.

Some Questions with Answers

Can we change the scheduled time and day? No. I have other responsibilities so there are very few possible slots. In any case, it takes a very big effort to make a change, and in fact it might be impossible to find a time that works for me and vast majority is happy with. We can attempt at the first meeting but it probably will not work.

Will this be an online course? No. I will provide some online material, but it is mostly face-to-face.

Do I need to attend the course? Will you take attendance? Is it a problem (i.e., “sıkıntı olur mu?”) if I miss the classes? Yes. I expect you to attend the class. This is an elective course, if you cannot attend, take another course.

Is my mathematical background sufficient for this course? This is very subjective, so it is hard to answer. You need to have basic familiarity with algebraic and differential equations. Some of it you can learn on the way, but not all of it. The main audience for this course is Physics major juniors and seniors, if you are a sophomore, I suggest to wait a year.

Is my physics/astronomy background sufficient for this course? Probably, yes. I will not assume much beyond freshman level physics and almost no astronomy. The textbook assumes that you are familiar with a few subjects beyond that level, but I will provide resources for those topics.

Basic Course Information

Code, name, semester: This document contains information on ASTR404 (8640404), “Introduction to Cosmology”, for the spring semester of 2025-26 academic year.

Time and place: The class will be held on Tuesdays 10:40-12:30, Room P422 (4th floor) and Wednesday ay 14:40 in the same place. This may change, if it does, I will let you know.

Webpage: The course has a page on ODTUClass, where I will be posting all essential information.

Prerequisites: The course has a number of prerequisites listed in the catalogue. It is mainly to assure that you are familiar with most basic concepts.

Content: The course will be an introduction to physical cosmology. This is complementary and quite different from mathematical cosmology. We will use mathematical models and we will connect them to observations. We will not go into details of either, but we will look at how physics is used to make the connection.

Textbook and Additional Resources

We will be using

  • Barbara Ryden’s Introduction to Cosmology (Cambridge University Press, 2nd edition 2012, ISBN: 978-1107154834) as the main textbook and * Dragan Huterer’s A Course in Cosmology: From Theory to Practice (Cambridge University Press, 2023, ISBN: 978-1316513590) as supplement.

More advanced books that may be useful for specialized topics include

  • Cosmological Physics, John Andrew Peacock, CUP 1998.

  • Cosmology, Steven Weinberg, OUP 2008.

Some popular accounts that are useful for this course include * The First Three Minutes, Steven Weinberg, Basic Books, updated edition 1993. * The Inflationary Universe, Alan H. Guth, Basic Books, 1998.

There are also useful videos on YouTube on various topics. Guth’s OCW lectures at MIT are probably the most useful.

Course Course Coverage and Objectives

The course will cover all the topics in Ryden’s book, but the coverage for “structure formation” (last two chapters) will be brief. The idea is that after this course you will be able to pick up a cosmology paper and get the general idea of its goals and methods.

Instructor

Mehmet Atakan Gürkan (I use Atakan), email: agurkan@metu.edu.tr, Office: PZ36 (Physics Building ground floor).

Email is the best way to reach me. Please do not contact me with WhatsApp, Twitter, Instagram etc. (all of these happened). When contacting me by email, please pay attention to these points. These may seem crude or harsh, but they all stemmed from my past experience.

  1. Your email can be in English or Turkish.

  2. Your message should begin with a greeting and end with your name. As greeting, you can use “Merhaba”, “Hi”, “Hocam”, “Atakan hocam”, “Dear Atakan hocam”, etc. You do not need to be very formal, but remember that you are not sending a WhatsApp message to a buddy.

  3. Please observe proper grammar, punctuation and capitalization in your message.

  4. Adding your student ID at the very end is useful if I need to check my records to answer your question.

  5. Unless you are really replying to something I wrote in an email, do not use reply-to feature of your email client to send me a message. Use a fresh subject line appropriate to your message content. If I cannot track your message, I cannot answer it.

  6. All other things being equal, the shorter the answer you require, the faster I will respond.

  7. Please do not send me Microsoft Word, Excel etc. documents. I cannot open them, at least not easily, since I do not have MS Windows or MacOS. If you send me photos, make sure they are not too small, blurred etc.

  8. The best time to email me is weekday mornings. If you email me on weekends or outside 9am-4pm, your message has a higher chance of being read but not replied to; since once it gets marked as read, it will not necessarily draw my attention in the morning.

  9. If your message does not really require a response, I probably will not reply at all. However, if it does require a response, and I did not provide one in a few days, feel free to re-email me.

Lecture structure

This will be a face-to-face course, supported by a number of online tools. We will use ODTUClass (for many purposes), perusall (for some reading assignments, not firm on this yet; in any case, it will not be graded), GradeScope (for exams).

I expect you to attend the lectures and participate in the discussions, if you regularly fail to do so, you will receive an NA grade.

Office Hours

I will not be holding office hours for this class this semester. I will be available for your questions after the lecture, and alvo via email. If there is a big demand, I will consider setting up office hours.

Other Guidelines

Students and faculty each have responsibility for maintaining an appropriate learning environment. Students who fail to adhere to such behavioral standards may be subject to discipline. Faculty have the professional responsibility to treat all students with understanding, dignity and respect, to guide classroom discussion and to set reasonable limits on the manner in which they and their students express opinions. Professional courtesy and sensitivity are especially important with respect to individuals and topics dealing with differences of race, language, age, culture, religion, politics, sexual orientation, gender variance, and nationalities. Class rosters are provided to the instructor with the student’s legal name. I will gladly honor your request to address you by an alternate name or gender pronoun. Please advise me of this preference early in the semester so that I may make appropriate changes to my records. My preferred gender pronouns are he/him/his.

If you have specific physical, psychiatric, or learning disabilities and require accommodations, please contact me as soon as possible (preferably by the second week of the semester, but it is better late than never). You can also contact our Disability Support Office to see if you can benefit from their services http://engelsiz.metu.edu.tr/en/services.

Homework Assignments

There will be a homework assignment about every two weeks (I expect a total of 5-6 homeworks). You will have about a week to complete each. You will not be graded on them, but they will be essential for you to learn the material. I will try to provide the solutions in some form.

Using Gradescope

One of the email addresses you have at Gradescope needs to be your email address in the course’s website at ODTUClass. If you use another address, even if it is an alias, you will not be able to access this course on Gradescope. You will register for this course automatically once I upload the class roster. I will wait the end of add/drop period to do that.

Written exams

There will be two in-class written exams. The midterm exam will be after we finish chapter 5 or 6 (I will decide on this asap), and the final exam will be at the end of the term (covering everything, but with more emphasis on later topics).

Grading

You will be graded on one midterm and one final exam. Discussion participation will be considered in borderline cases.

Midterm exam

50%

Final exam

50%

Discussion participation

xx

The letter grades will be assigned according to:

90 or above

AA

85-89

BA

80-84

BB

75-79

CB

70-74

CC

65-69

DC

60-64

DD

50-59

FD

49 or below

FF

I reserve the right to lower these limits, but I will not raise them. In particular, it will be possible for everyone to get an AA.

General Disclaimer

The above schedule, policies, procedures, and assignments in this course are subject to change in the event of extenuating circumstances, by mutual agreement, and/or to ensure better student learning.