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1. Why can the very early Universe be described as remarkably simple? What is
the "cast of characters" in the Universe one millionth of a second after the big bang?
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2. Outline the events that occurred during the first three minutes of our Universe's history.
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3. For how long was the Universe radiation-dominated? What caused the change from a radiation-dominated to a matter dominated Universe? What caused the change from an opaque to a transparent Universe?
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4. What is the Perfect Cosmological Principle and how does it differ from the Cosmological Principle?
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5. How did the steady-state hypothesis reconcile the expansion of the Universe with the requirement that an unchanging Universe must have a constant density through time?
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6. What evidence ruled out the steady-state hypothesis?
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7. Describe the serendipity involved in the discovery of the Cosmic Background Radiation
(CBR).
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8. What is meant by the statement that the
CBR has a temperature of 2.7 K?
At the time the CBR was emitted, it was being emitted by a gas at 3000 K.
Why is its peak in the radio portion of the spectrum rather than visible or infrared?
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9. Why does the isotropy of the CBR present two problems for the standard big bang theory? How does the small fluctuations discovered by COBE help to solve one of these problems?
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10. How does the inflationary big bang cure the horizon problem, the flatness problem, and the monopole problem?
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11. Distinguish between the top-down theories and bottom-up theories of structure formation.
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