The size and age of the universe (Part 1)
When scientists say that the universe is about 14 billion years old, the earth is about 4.6 billion years old and a particular fossil is this millions years old, what do they mean? More importantly, how do they measure or come to the suggestion of those figures as representative of their ages.
In these two series, we shall look at what it means as well as their reliability.
FIRST, THE MYTH WALL
Holy books dominate public viewpoint. Given that the opening chapter of the biblical account is “in the beginning god created the heaven and earth”, the Universe they believed is very young as it was created in six days. By adding up the number of begets or the genealogies starting from Adam in the book of the Genesis to that of Christ in the NT, the Church via Bishop James Ussher concluded that the world was created 6000 years ago (4000 years before Christ and 2000 years after him). You know they erect defensive wall in a day is 1000 years to the lord and vice versa to avoid the ridiculous six 24hrs day obviously implied in the genesis account itself.
But the surface landscape of the earth born of the geological activities cries out against that estimation. And the universe itself cries out louder than that. Worst, it is ridiculous to believe you can find the age of not only the earth but also the universe itself by adding up the number of begets in a fabled and myth filled book, being it the Bible, Quran or any other holy book. So for a better estimate for the age of the earth and universe, we turn to science – the hunter, gatherer and weaver of knowledge. Let us start with that of the Universe.
SECOND, THE FACT WALL
Mathematics is our greatest invention that takes us round the Universe on the wheel of imaginations. It has helped us penetrate the Universe in ways unthinkable to ourselves. So we rely on it in our projections. Somewhere in 2006, we witness eclipse in Ghana. The information about the time of the eclipse was around long before the D-day. We all prepared for it. We watched it happily. Others equally do so as well at different times on other continents. But how did this five foot tall creature, man, become capable of predicting such local phenomenon tens of thousands of miles away with a killer accuracy ahead of time? The simple answer is science. The simplest is mathematics. The mathematical universal law of gravitation propounded by Newton as extensions of Kepler’s laws is the springboard on which we stand to see that far.
This law helps humanity send satellites and robotic probes to land at their destinations around and on faraway planets and other heavenly bodies as they follow their trajectories. Not only can these laws help us do these, we can also predict the future positions of the heavenly bodies and their alignment resulting into eclipse as well as retrodict their positions in the far distant past. In principle, the laws of motion are the same when applied forth and back in time. Therefore, analogously we can pause and rewind the motions of the heavenly bodies in simulations comparable to pausing and replaying parts of movie to watch for clarity or further enjoyment.
And guess what, it works most often. It is a marvel if you think of it all. As approximate as science and mathematics are in their collaborative descriptions of nature, they are revealing nevertheless. That is the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics as Eugene Wigner puts it. Given this, we are now ready to take off in the estimation of the size and age of the universe via the mathematical laws employed. Whilst every doubt is welcome, their reliability is proven severally for you to accept their estimations as the ages than summation of begets from fabled and myth filled books.
To be concluded…
By: Stanley Seshie
Email:[email protected]
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