Rationale
I believe that asking the question why is an essential aspect of education, and trying to develop the discerning capacity to pursue that inquiry is the obligation of the educator.
Cosmology is a fundamental science and is experiencing an unprecedented expansion of available knowledge. A myriad of telescopes are reaching billions of years back in time to determine the origin, scale and future of our Universe. The knowledge obtained has led to the surprising discovery that the Universe is made up of 23% dark matter and 73% dark energy in addition to the very small percentage of ordinary baryonic matter of which we are made. So 96% of the Universe has been discovered within the past decade and very little is known about it! Although physicists have only determined the presence of dark matter from its gravitational effects and still do not know what dark energy is other than that it provides a repulsive force, the essence of the scientific pursuit is to search into the unknown for greater comprehension.
Cosmology is establishing the very parameters of the unknown and guiding the search for a unified understanding of the physical world. Remarkably, physicists are able to utilize their understanding of high energy particle physics and nuclear physics to extrapolate back to 10 - 4 3 second, an infinitesimally small fraction of a second, from the beginning of the Universe, called the Planck time. The establishment of the expansion of the Universe by Edwin Hubble from the cosmological redshift, the discovery of the existence of a cosmic radiation background, the understanding of primordial nucleosynthesis and the production of heavier elements within supernovae to establish the detected levels of elements within the Universe from spectroscopy, and the recent discovery that the expansion of the Universe is in fact accelerating from ancient supernovae data have established cosmology as a legitimate scientific pursuit that is enriching our comprehension of the laws of physics.
Cosmology has established itself on the cutting edge of science because the extreme conditions of the early Universe are not reproducible experimentally and those extreme conditions indicate the limitations of our current pillars of modern science, relativity and quantum mechanics, because they result in mathematical singularities. In order to progress, we must find a deeper comprehension of reality to unify our current understanding of the nature of the cosmos. Consequently, cosmology has established itself as a driving force in modern science and is guaranteed to be central to the advancement of scientific knowledge. Therefore, we would be remiss as educators, especially science educators, not to introduce our students to the stimulating and intellectually expansive, cutting-edge knowledge of current cosmology.
Comments: