pallidin Posted September 14, 2017 #1 Share Posted September 14, 2017 It's formally considered that the age of our Universe is approximately 14 billion years, I ask why? Why not 100 billion years ago, or a trillion, or yesterday? Or even in the future? What makes 14 billion years ago so special? Obviously, it's special. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter B Posted September 16, 2017 #2 Share Posted September 16, 2017 Because evidence. For a start, let's assume we're working within the limits of science - so no religious miracles. This rules out a universe created instantly yesterday, along with Christian creationist suggestions of a 6000-10000 year old universe. Within the limits of science, a lower limit for the age of the universe must be the age of the oldest objects within it. For example, white dwarf stars are the cooling remnants of stars like our Sun. As the coldest of these must the oldest, their temperature provides evidence of at least how old the universe must be. But the main evidence comes from measurements of the expansion of the universe. Apart from nearby galaxies which are approaching each other thanks to gravity, far distant galaxies are getting further away from us, and the more distant ones are retreating faster. This suggests the universe is expanding, and means that in the past everything was closer together. A variety of experiments have been undertaken to calculate the rate of expansion, and whatever figure is calculated leads directly to an age of the universe: the slower the expansion, the older the universe must be. So the currently accepted figure for the age of the universe derives from measurements of how quickly the universe is expanding. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Weitter Duckss Posted September 25, 2017 #3 Share Posted September 25, 2017 On 16. 09. 2017. at 3:07 PM, Peter B said: Because evidence. For a start, let's assume we're working within the limits of science - so no religious miracles. There is no difference between "suggestions of a 6000-10000 year old universe" and "measurements of the expansion of the universe". "A very important fact needs to be stressed here: although after certain distance only red shift is registered, at the same time – on that and on all other distances – the collisions of galaxies are registered. 72 collisions of clusters of galaxies were registered, even though there is a red shift among all of them. These collisions indicate it is an illusion that the speeds of moving away or rotations only increased, because a collision stands for a blue spectral shift for the colliding objects. The illusion appears only from the observation of galaxies through the increase of speed. There is an increase of speed along with the weakening of the intensity of waves, but by no means in numbers that are these days taken as an undeniable evidence. The rotation of the clusters of galaxies and the Universe is occurring many times slower and it can be seen from the similarities between the more closer and very distant galaxies." (http://www.svemir-ipaksevrti.com/Universe-and-rotation.html#spectrum-of-colors) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khol Posted September 25, 2017 #4 Share Posted September 25, 2017 On 14/09/2017 at 3:26 AM, pallidin said: It's formally considered that the age of our Universe is approximately 14 billion years, I ask why? Why not 100 billion years ago, or a trillion, or yesterday? Or even in the future? What makes 14 billion years ago so special? Obviously, it's special. No its not special. Its just a number derived by observation and science. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Monk Posted October 8, 2017 #5 Share Posted October 8, 2017 On 16/09/2017 at 2:07 PM, Peter B said: Because evidence. For a start, let's assume we're working within the limits of science - so no religious miracles. This rules out a universe created instantly yesterday, along with Christian creationist suggestions of a 6000-10000 year old universe. God created the universe 13.82 billion years ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will Due Posted October 8, 2017 #6 Share Posted October 8, 2017 If the universe is expanding, why at some point in the future wouldn't it begin to contract? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter B Posted October 9, 2017 #7 Share Posted October 9, 2017 20 hours ago, Black Monk said: God created the universe 13.82 billion years ago. Was it God, or another god of the same name? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter B Posted October 9, 2017 #8 Share Posted October 9, 2017 20 hours ago, Will Due said: If the universe is expanding, why at some point in the future wouldn't it begin to contract? Because AIUI the evidence suggests that the amount of mass in the universe generates too little gravity to make that happen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Monk Posted October 9, 2017 #9 Share Posted October 9, 2017 41 minutes ago, Peter B said: Was it God, or another god of the same name? There's only one God. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Noteverythingisaconspiracy Posted October 9, 2017 #10 Share Posted October 9, 2017 21 hours ago, Black Monk said: God created the universe 13.82 billion years ago. If God created the Universe 13,82 billion years ago, why did he wait until a few thousand years ago to create mankind ? Just waiting around for more than 13,8 billion years seems kinda lazy to me. 4 minutes ago, Black Monk said: There's only one God. Maybe he needs an assistant ? (See above) 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter B Posted October 9, 2017 #11 Share Posted October 9, 2017 17 minutes ago, Black Monk said: There's only one God. There's hundreds of millions of Hindus who'd disagree with you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Monk Posted October 9, 2017 #12 Share Posted October 9, 2017 27 minutes ago, Noteverythingisaconspiracy said: If God created the Universe 13,82 billion years ago, why did he wait until a few thousand years ago to create mankind ? Just waiting around for more than 13,8 billion years seems kinda lazy to me. Maybe he needs an assistant ? (See above) There were many species on Earth before mankind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter B Posted October 9, 2017 #13 Share Posted October 9, 2017 23 minutes ago, Black Monk said: There were many species on Earth before mankind. So? That wouldn't be a problem for an omnipotent deity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Monk Posted October 9, 2017 #14 Share Posted October 9, 2017 51 minutes ago, Peter B said: There's hundreds of millions of Hindus who'd disagree with you. And I disagree with the Hindus. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Monk Posted October 9, 2017 #15 Share Posted October 9, 2017 8 minutes ago, Peter B said: So? That wouldn't be a problem for an omnipotent deity. No. It isn't. It's not a problem at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kartikg Posted October 9, 2017 #16 Share Posted October 9, 2017 1 hour ago, Noteverythingisaconspiracy said: If God created the Universe 13,82 billion years ago, why did he wait until a few thousand years ago to create mankind ? Just waiting around for more than 13,8 billion years seems kinda lazy to me. Maybe he needs an assistant ? (See above) 13.8 billion years is like a 1 second for God. Anyway hate that this thread instead of being about astronomy is now hijacked into a religious one. It had so much potential. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter B Posted October 9, 2017 #17 Share Posted October 9, 2017 5 minutes ago, kartikg said: 13.8 billion years is like a 1 second for God. Anyway hate that this thread instead of being about astronomy is now hijacked into a religious one. It had so much potential. Sorry, you're right. It is an interesting topic in its own right. For one thing the process of determining the universe had a beginning at all sounds like it was a fascinating piece of work. When I was a child I had some popular astronomy books which listed two main theories about the origin of the universe - Steady State and Big Bang; those books were old enough that they were likely written when there was still genuine uncertainty about which of these explanations was correct (they also included illustrations of Uranus and Neptune which showed little more than green and blue smudges). But the point is that the Steady State theory lost out to the Big Bang theory on the relative strength of supporting evidence - it all favoured predictions made for the Big Bang theory. From that point on it was a matter of working out the age of the universe. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Noteverythingisaconspiracy Posted October 9, 2017 #18 Share Posted October 9, 2017 8 hours ago, kartikg said: 13.8 billion years is like a 1 second for God. Anyway hate that this thread instead of being about astronomy is now hijacked into a religious one. It had so much potential. I agree that it should be about astronomy, but in my defence I wasn't the one that brought up religion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kartikg Posted October 10, 2017 #19 Share Posted October 10, 2017 11 hours ago, Noteverythingisaconspiracy said: I agree that it should be about astronomy, but in my defence I wasn't the one that brought up religion. hey I was not accusing you. I was just stating my observation, most threads on science get sidetracked into god and religion debate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D.O'N Posted October 10, 2017 #20 Share Posted October 10, 2017 If God created the universe, where was "it" before the universe was made? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Essan Posted October 10, 2017 #21 Share Posted October 10, 2017 God did create the universe. But did not exist before the universe was created God (any or all of them) is simply an anthropomorphism of nature. Nature is simply everything in the universe. And the universe was created naturally ..... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rlyeh Posted October 10, 2017 #22 Share Posted October 10, 2017 On 09/10/2017 at 11:01 PM, Black Monk said: There's only one God. Good thing we invented him. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Monk Posted October 11, 2017 #23 Share Posted October 11, 2017 20 hours ago, Rlyeh said: Good thing we invented him. God actually invented us. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waspie_Dwarf Posted October 11, 2017 #24 Share Posted October 11, 2017 People, a quick reminder: please stay on topic. This is the astronomy section there is an entire section of the site where discussion of theology IS on topic. Thank you. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir Smoke aLot Posted October 11, 2017 #25 Share Posted October 11, 2017 Its only that, from our perspective, current estimations are in line with the rest of our understanding of the Universe which is, again, made from our perspective and over research about the observable Universe which could be only one small part of much larger picture. I like to believe that the Universe is much larger than what we can assume and consequentially a lot older. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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