Georges Lemaître - Original Estimate of Age of Universe
AlwaysAskingQuestions
Mike Dworetsky
> Anybody happen to know what it was?
Early estimates of the age of the Universe (say, in the late 1920s and early
30s) depended on Hubble's result for the expansion rate measured from
recession of the galaxies. Eddington wrote a very elegant paper in 1930
http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1930MNRAS..90..668E
in which he uses Lemaitre's work and got an age of 2 x 10^9 yr. But of
course, H = 500 km/s/Mpc was current then, and now it is 72, and an age of
13.7 BY.
I can't find Lemaitre's own estimate of the age other than a 1931 paper in
which he comes up with an age parameter of 10^10 yr or more, but it isn't
clear that this is an actual age estimate, whereas Eddington's was.
Eddington also pointed out that this age (2 BY) was less than the likely age
of the Sun (~5BY) so that even then the contradiction was evident.
The main point of Lemaitre's work was that he showed that Einstein's
equations led to an unstable universe that should be either expanding or
contracting, not static. Until Hubble came up with some numbers, no one,
including Lemaitre, could be sure what the age actually was, only that it
must be finite and old enough for the Earth to exist (age then thought to be
around 2 BY).
--
Mike Dworetsky
(Remove pants sp*mbl*ck to reply)
AlwaysAskingQuestions
I wasn't trying to read anything into the fact that the estimate has changed
over the years, my own attitude is that 10 billion or 20 billion, who
cares?, it's somewhere in that order ;)
Mike Dworetsky
The current value of 13.7 BY is pretty solidly based on convergent
observations of different phemomena. It does not contradict age
determinations from stellar spectroscopy that the oldest stars found are c.
10-12 BY old.
All-seeing-I
wrote:
You guys are so amusing the way you claim such surety with these dates
knowing full well you may discover something tommorow that will
overturn what you believe today.
Why is that?
bpuharic
really?? you're saying the earth is the center of the solar system
because what we know about heliocentrism is wrong?
interesting view you creationsits have. but it's no surprise given
that you guys thought the sun was a ghost
>Why is that?
Caranx latus
Did you miss the part that said "based on convergent observations of
different phenomena"? Our estimate of the age of the universe has been
changing over many years. As far as I know, it has been being *refined*
over that time, not overturned.
R Brown
"All-seeing-I" <ap...@email.com> wrote in message
news:6256a48b-ce46-4daf...@k19g2000yqc.googlegroups.com...
weakness: that science refines itself in the light of better evidence. Sucks
to be you.
Mike Dworetsky
Because we know what we are doing, unlike creationists who have been wrong
for 3000 years. Astronomers are always trying to improve the techniques
used. You seem to regard that as a weakness, but it is science's greatest
strength.
You better switch off your computer now, because next month someone will be
selling a better, cheaper, one and you know this means all those computer
guys are just, well, wrong.
Dan Listermann
"All-seeing-I" <ap...@email.com> wrote in message
news:6256a48b-ce46-4daf...@k19g2000yqc.googlegroups.com...
And that would be fine. You, on the other hand, can't imagine changing one
bit of your superstition, knowing full well it would fall apart like a house
of cards.
.
Dan Listermann
"Caranx latus" <kar...@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
news:hf9tei$800$1...@aioe.org...
The might let us know when they update their scriptures to better reflect
new discoveries.
.
AlwaysAskingQuestions
> "Caranx latus" <kar...@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
> news:hf9tei$800$1...@aioe.org...
[...]
> The might let us know when they update their scriptures to better
> reflect new discoveries.
The weird thing is that Scriptures has absolutely nothing to say about the
*age* of the Earth. These fundies insist that the Bible has to be read
literally yet their argument about the age of the Earth is based on a 17th
century bishop's *interpretation* of the Bible ;)
Dan Listermann
"AlwaysAskingQuestions" <alwaysaski...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:7nsgj8F...@mid.individual.net...
Well please tell us what your opinion of the age of the Earth is - from the
view of a non-literalist.
.
Ye Old One
Because, unlike religion, science actually welcomes new evidence.
--
Bob.
You have not been charged for this lesson - learn from it rather than
continuing to make a fool of yourself.
AlwaysAskingQuestions
I accept the current scientific opinion of 13.7 BY
Dan Listermann
Excellent, then you just might be able to comprehend that the time needed
for evolution to give us what we observe today was adequate.
.
All-seeing-I
I DO NOT think it is a weakness at all. Quite the contrary.
But I do hate the fact that todays scientific information is presented
as a fact and as truth when science knows full well their information
is subject to change at any time.
Which means information on such topics as ToE is being presented in
the media and in the classrooms as if it were a FACT. But that claim
cannot be accurately made in the light of ever changing evidence
.
All-seeing-I
This is a distortion of reality.
See my reply to R Brown
Dana Tweedy
>>
>> It's because you thinks science's greatest strength is it's greatest
>> weakness: that science refines itself in the light of better
>> evidence. Sucks to be you.-
>
> I DO NOT think it is a weakness at all. Quite the contrary.
Yet you betray this in the very next paragraph.
>
> But I do hate the fact that todays scientific information is presented
> as a fact and as truth when science knows full well their information
> is subject to change at any time.
Science never claims anything is "truth" in any unquestionable way.
Evolution, for example is a fact, because it's been directly observed, not
because it's some unquestionable "truth". New information can change how
evolution is explained, but the fact that species change over time is been
established beyond any reasonable doubt.
>
> Which means information on such topics as ToE is being presented in
> the media and in the classrooms as if it were a FACT.
No one presentes the theory of evolution as a fact. A theory, in science
is much more useful and important than a mere fact. What is a fact is
that evolution has happened. How it happens is what the theory is all
about.
> But that claim
> cannot be accurately made in the light of ever changing evidence
You are mistaken. The evidence doesn't change, it accumulates. The
observation that populations change over time is not ever going away. As
more observations are collected, it will become clearer how this happens.
Ancient legends and stories are never going to replace science, and
observations as a means of investigating the world.
DJT
>
> .
Mike Dworetsky
You still don't get it. Science improves and refines all the time.
Sometimes a conceptual breakthrough occurs. In religion, however, a
conceptual breakthrough usually leads to being burned at the stake. In
science, it can lead to a Nobel Prize.
We used to quote the age of the universe as 15 +/- 5 billion years. As we
refined our data and modelling, the best estimate gradually converged on 14
+/-2, then +/-1, then with WMAP data 13.7 +/-0.3 BY (All numbers
approximate--I'd need to look up the very latest quoted figure). Note that
at no time did astronomers abandon the Big Bang concept, nor did the age
estimate ever wander outside its error limits. Other concepts such as dark
matter and dark energy (foreshadowed in the case of dark matter by puzzling
results from as long ago as 75 years) are conceptual breakthroughs.
The difference between science and your religion-based beliefs is that the
latter were wrong right from the start, and remain wrong. In some ways the
religious creationist argument is going backwards conceptually rather than
advancing.
Mike Dworetsky
Universe 13.7 BY; Earth and Solar System 4.56 BY.
Ye Old One
<ap...@email.com> enriched this group when s/he wrote:
>This is a distortion of reality.
Everything about you is a distortion of reality.
--
Bob.
Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright
ideas from penetrating. Your bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little
sign of breaking down in the near future.
AlwaysAskingQuestions
Sorry, my bad, it was Universe i was thinking about.
bpuharic
<ap...@email.com> wrote:
>On Dec 3, 10:47�pm, "R Brown" <bro...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> > You guys are so amusing the way you claim such surety with these dates
>> > knowing full well you may discover something tommorow that will
>> > overturn what you believe today.
>>
>> > Why is that?
>>
>> It's because you thinks science's greatest strength is it's greatest
>> weakness: that science refines itself in the light of better evidence. Sucks
>> to be you.-
>
>I DO NOT think it is a weakness at all. Quite the contrary.
>
>But I do hate the fact that todays scientific information is presented
>as a fact and as truth when science knows full well their information
>is subject to change at any time.
no one knows what this means. are you saying the fact that the sun is
the center of the solar system is subject to revision? the fact that
atoms exist is subject to revision?
and creationism? it can't change because it's always wrong. when
you're always wrong there's no point in changing.
Dan Listermann
"All-seeing-I" <ap...@email.com> wrote in message
news:6256a48b-ce46-4daf...@k19g2000yqc.googlegroups.com...
Because science is self correcting. You are amusing in the way you claim
such surety that your dates are correct and cannot ever be corrected because
a book recounting the campfire mumblings of bronze age goat herders said so.
Why is that?
.
Dan Listermann
>
> But I do hate the fact that todays scientific information is presented
> as a fact and as truth when science knows full well their information
> is subject to change at any time.
>
But I do hate the fact that today's superstitious religious information is
presented
as a fact and as truth when religion knows full well their information
is carved in stone and not subject to change at any time.
.