The Friedmann cosmology: mountains and wells, as real and potential

Abstract

The Universe dynamical equations discovered by Alexander Friedmann in 1922 are simple enough to be clear for undergraduate students or even for smart senior schoolkids. The background cosmology driven by the dust-like matter and by positive cosmological constant in General Relativity can be understood as a radial motion of a test particle in the superposition of Newtonian and anti-Hook potentials according to Newtonian mechanics. This analogy was mentioned by George Gamov in his book (1952). The present paper was written as a pedagogical and methodological text.