One weekly module is taught across two 75-minute meetings. Labs and problem sets are paired to completed module pairs and due on even-numbered weeks.
| Week | Lecture | Assessment |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lecture 01: Redshift, Scale Factor, and the Expanding Universe | Lecture and reading preparation |
| 2 | Lecture 02: The FLRW Distance Ladder | Lab 01; Problem Set 01 |
| 3 | Lecture 03: Type Ia Supernovae as Standardizable Candles | Lecture and reading preparation |
| 4 | Lecture 04: Supernova Covariance and Calibration | Lab 02; Problem Set 02 |
| 5 | Lecture 05: Baryon Acoustic Oscillations as a Standard Ruler | Lecture and reading preparation |
| 6 | Lecture 06: The CMB Acoustic Scale | Lab 03; Problem Set 03 |
| 7 | Lecture 07: Weak Gravitational Lensing and Cosmic Shear | Lecture and reading preparation |
| 8 | Lecture 08: Growth of Structure and Redshift-Space Distortions | Lab 04; Problem Set 04 |
| 9 | Lecture 09: Likelihoods, Priors, and Parameter Degeneracies | Lecture and reading preparation |
| 10 | Lecture 10: Survey Selection and Malmquist Bias | Lab 05; Problem Set 05 |
| 11 | Lecture 11: Cross-Probe Concordance and Tension | Lecture and reading preparation |
| 12 | Lecture 12: Curvature and Evolving Dark Energy | Lab 06; Problem Set 06 |
| 13 | Lecture 13: Systematics, Calibration, and Error Budgets | Lecture and reading preparation |
| 14 | Lecture 14: Observational Cosmology Synthesis | Lab 07; Problem Set 07 |
Lecture sequence
| No. | Title | Driving question |
|---|---|---|
| 01 | Redshift, Scale Factor, and the Expanding Universe | What does a measured redshift actually tell us? |
| 02 | The FLRW Distance Ladder | Why do cosmologists use several different distances? |
| 03 | Type Ia Supernovae as Standardizable Candles | How does a light curve become a distance indicator? |
| 04 | Supernova Covariance and Calibration | Why is a list of error bars not a likelihood? |
| 05 | Baryon Acoustic Oscillations as a Standard Ruler | How do galaxy clustering measurements encode distance? |
| 06 | The CMB Acoustic Scale | Why is the microwave background a distance probe? |
| 07 | Weak Gravitational Lensing and Cosmic Shear | How can tiny image distortions reveal matter? |
| 08 | Growth of Structure and Redshift-Space Distortions | How does gravity build structure after the CMB? |
| 09 | Likelihoods, Priors, and Parameter Degeneracies | What does a confidence contour really encode? |
| 10 | Survey Selection and Malmquist Bias | Which objects never enter the catalog? |
| 11 | Cross-Probe Concordance and Tension | When do two experiments disagree? |
| 12 | Curvature and Evolving Dark Energy | Which parts of the distance-redshift curve reveal new physics? |
| 13 | Systematics, Calibration, and Error Budgets | How do we know what is limiting the measurement? |
| 14 | Observational Cosmology Synthesis | What evidence is needed to defend a cosmological claim? |
Assessment cadence rationale: seven labs and seven problem sets each span two adjacent lectures, due Weeks 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, and 14. This supports multi-step data work; there is no hidden one-to-one lecture assessment mapping.