The Expansion of the Universe

• demanded by homogeneity and isotropy
• scale factor
• raisin cake analogy
  balloon analogy

The Center of the Universe?

• demands of homogeneity and isotropy
• alternative location: a short drive southwest of campus
  Philo, IL: downtown landmark, zoom

The Future: Fate of the Universe

• Traditional view: gravity vs intertia
• New data: cosmic acceleration
• interpretations: dark energy or downfall of General Relativity?

Microwave Background Radiation

• Detection: Penzias & Wilson
• Radiation in the early universe:
  spectrum
  temperature pattern
• temperature fluctuations: seeds of structure
  Mather & Smoot

The Nuclear Era: Big Bang Nucleosynthesis

• Light element formation
• the elements: big bang to now, and in you

The Very Early Universe

• Fermilab:
  sky view, tunnel
• CERN: overview, Large Hadronic Collider (LHC); detector: end-on, real-time
• the Universe as "the poor man's accelerator"
• cosmic timeline

Remaining Questions

Last Words

• a sense of perspective