Best way for a layman to get up to speed on cosmology outside of school

[Meatbot]

I got as far as Calc 2 in college, took some college physics and read lots of popular cosmology books. What if I want to get technical now? What specific math do I need to know to fast track it without learning things that are irrelevant? It's too late to go back to school now.

 

[marcus]

Have a look at Lineweaver Inflation and the CMB
http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0305179

it has equations, but they are easy equations
the graphs and figures are really helpful.
a lot of things are explained in a clear mathematical way without the math being especially hard
======================
start playing around with the java cosmology calculators at Ned Wright's site and also
the one at Morgan's site that converts redshift to recession speed.
http://www.uni.edu/morgans/ajjar/Cosmology/cosmos.html
when you start with it, put in three standard parameters
matter density 0.27
Lambda density 0.73
Hubble parameter 71

To find Ned Wright's cosmology calculators, just google Ned Wright
==========================

Here is a basic SciAm cosmoogy article by Lineweaver NOT technical (so not what you asked for) but valuable anyway
Misconceptions about the Big Bang.
http://www.astro.princeton.edu/~aes/AST105/Readings/misconceptionsBigBang.pdf

Here are the class materials links for a Princeton General Astronomy course, see if anything there is useful
http://www.astro.princeton.edu/~aes/AST105/syllabus.notes.html

==========================

FOR GENERAL RELATIVITY there is Sean Carroll's online textbook at the LivingReviews site. I can't personally recommend but people do use it as a textbook and he's a talented expository writer.

===========================

this is just a start. Other people will have other suggestions, I hope. I'll be interested to see what the others recommend.