"Physical cosmology is a branch of cosmology concerned with the study of cosmological models."
This is a subfield that uses mathematical modeling and analysis to develop and test new theoretical models and hypotheses about the universe.
"A cosmological model, or simply cosmology, provides a description of the largest-scale structures and dynamics of the universe."
"A cosmological model [...] allows study of fundamental questions about its origin, structure, evolution, and ultimate fate."
"First, Edwin Hubble discovered that the universe contains a huge number of external galaxies beyond the Milky Way; then, work by Vesto Slipher and others showed that the universe is expanding."
"These advances made it possible to speculate about the origin of the universe, and allowed the establishment of the Big Bang theory, by Georges Lemaître, as the leading cosmological model."
"A few researchers still advocate a handful of alternative cosmologies."
"However, most cosmologists agree that the Big Bang theory best explains the observations."
"Dramatic advances in observational cosmology since the 1990s, including the cosmic microwave background, distant supernovae and galaxy redshift surveys, have led to the development of a standard model of cosmology."
"The model requires the universe to contain large amounts of dark matter and dark energy."
"The nature of dark matter and dark energy whose nature is currently not well understood."
"Cosmology draws heavily on the work of many disparate areas of research in theoretical and applied physics."
"Areas relevant to cosmology include particle physics experiments and theory, theoretical and observational astrophysics, general relativity, quantum mechanics, and plasma physics."