Monday, 14 September 2009

general relativity - Recommendation for introductory cosmology text

This book by Andrew Liddle is fantastic for explaining the basic concepts and giving the reader a good mental picture of the ideas, but it may be a little more basic than what you're looking for (I still keep it as a good reference when reading more advanced texts).



If you're looking for something more advanced Peter Coles & Francesco Lucchins guide may be of interest. Unfortunately some of the discussions have already dated a little (there is a large section on non-gaussianity if I remember rightly, whose proponents have been all but silenced by the latest Planck results). This is another good resource I went to when completing my graduate cosmology course, but I couldn't recommend it on it's own; many of the derivations are piecemeal at best, so ideally read in conjunction with a more thorough text.



Not sure if you came across this text during your undergrad investigations but it is basically the bible of galactic physics along with this. It goes in to some of the touch points of galaxy physics and cosmology which may prove useful for your understanding.



Finally this may be of interest - I can't vouch for it but it popped up when looking for links to the books above, has good reviews and seems to be at the level you're looking for as well as discussing some topics you may already have exposure to.



For all the above I'd recommend getting them out from a library first and working thoroughly through a few chapters to get a feel for the text before splashing out.

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