A comparative study of Brans-Dicke and general relativistic cosmologies in terms of observationally measurable quantities

A comparison between general relativistic and Brans-Dicke cosmologies is made in terms of quantities measurable by an observational astronomer. Numerical integration of the Brans-Dicke field equations was employed to find the relationships of the mean density of cosmic matter, the age, and the time derivative of the gravitational constant to the Hubble constant and deceleration parameter. The difference between general relativistic and Brans-Dicke apparent magnitude-redshift diagrams was found to be negligible even at large redshifts under the assumption of no galactic evolution in absolute magnitude.