Slashdot Mirror
New Estimates for Universe's Age
Makarand writes "In a study published recently in the journal Science,
a team of researchers say that they are 95% sure the universe is between 11.2 billion
and 20 billion years old according to this
article on Space.com.
The new calculations from cosmologists at Case Western Reserve University and Dartmouth College involved new information about old star clusters in our galaxy and a better understanding of how stars evolve." Which blows my theory that the Universe is predated by Zsa Zsa Gabor, but oh well.
Last year, data supplied by the Hubble Space Telescope led to an apparently refined estimate of 13 billion to 14 billion years
So, last year, they had an estimate of 13-14 billion. This year, it's 11-20 billion. Yeah to scientific progress!
a team of researchers say that they are 95% sure Zsa Zsa Gabor is between 86 and 172 years old
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
42!
. . . no, wait, that's the answer to a different question.
"This must be a Thursday, I never could get the hang of Thursdays."
They're only 95% sure. I'm 100% sure the universe is over 1000 years old. I'm only 5% away from the top scientists! Woot!
I am a bit surprised. Granted, I am no astrophysicist, but I knew that the Earth is estimated to be 4.5 billion years old. So I expected the universe to be much, much older than that.
Sigged!
And I guess when this term will be up, the RIAA and Disney will have the universe's age revised AGAIN !
I am no physics guru, but I've been asking myself this question for some time now. Since time was created with the big bang, and considering the theory of relativity, is it sensible to define the age of the universe? Did time behave as we are used to at the very beginning? If I'm right (feel free to correct me) when using the relativity theory you have to define a clock first and then you can measure time according to that clock. So what clock are they using?
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
The universe is 4003 years old. Everyone knows that, details of the universe's creation can be found in the Bible.
I mean really, when are these so-called scientists going to stop with this ploy to undermine The Truth.
Jeeze.
I can't tell if this is news or not, really, although 11.2 billion seems awful young if you're going to have two generations of stars before the sun (which is supposedly, what, 4 or 5 billion years old?).
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
...will be 9~26 billion.
So they know they weren't accurate last year, and I have to "believe" them now.
What happened to science? Do the word "proof" mean something anymore?
At least, they should explain more in what are those estimates based instead of going for headlines with fancy numbers.
You'd think they could narrow it down a little. That's like saying, "I'm 95% sure this man is between 40 and 70".
Its a very cheap TAG rip-off I bought in Turkey. This explains the wide range of the estimations, its out several percent a minute so over a few billions years that could be loads.
If they'd used a real TAG they would have had it down to the second, but you can't admit that its a fake if they don't spot can you ?
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
"The universe is between 11.2 and 20 billion years old" could be interpreted as meaning "The universe is 15.6bn years old +/- 4.4 billion", which is +/-28% accuracy. To be 95% sure at this accuracy level isn't actually all that bad, when you think about the normal distribution, bell curves and the like. However, it does imply that there's some considerable discrepancy between each estimate, as you may well expect for something we don't really know much about.
Like car accidents, most hardware problems are due to driver error.
"Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. 14% of people know that."
Homer J. Simpson
"When you cousider that the universe could be infinatly old,"
Not in this reality, it couldn't be infin*i*tely old.
Ever since I was at school over 10 years ago it's been "between 10-20 billion years, most likely 16ish". That's why I also wonder what's changed.
~Tim
--
Rushing on down to the circle of the turn
Not trying to troll here (and speaking as a creationist), but I fail to see how a range this wide is helpful to anybody, let alone intriguing. This has always been my biggest fault with the theory of evolution: it will always remain indeterminate. Questions abound:
The article even states:
I'm not trying to pessimistic, but it's always hard for me to believe any of these theories given that they seem to change on the decade. (And yes, I've been around a few decades.) If evolutionists could step back for a second and see the ridiculousness posed by articles like these, they might see that it comes off as not much better than science fiction or some 1960's Popular Mechanics dream concept of the future. The "evolution" of the theory of evolution itself should be evidence of its failure. (BTW, has anybody ever written about this?)
There is no need to use a SlashDot sig for SEO...
Aren't estimates supposed to improve with time? I mean, for years they've been saying between 13 and 15 billion, and now they're saying 11.5-20 billion. Well, hell, I liked the old estimate. Sounded like they actually knew what they were talking about. Now it sounds like they're less sure. And frankly, 95% between 11.5 and 20 billion doesn't sound all that accurate, though I don't know how accurate the 13-15 range was.
Well, let's go ahead and start a pool. Put me in for 14,493,323,583 years old.
Ever since I was at school over 10 years ago it's been "between 10-20 billion years, most likely 16ish". That's why I also wonder what's changed.
We have more data to back this up. Having said that, I am suspicious of this claim - not only did it appear in science rather than one of the astrophysical journals, I haven't heard of this group in my day-to-day research (OK, so sue me, I am only a first year PhD student, but I should still have heard of them if they are doing real science), and I trust my supervisor more than I trust this mob. See one of my other posts for more details.
Which blows my theory that the Universe is predated by Zsa Zsa Gabor, but oh well.
And this new evidence disproves that theory how?
-- Is "Sig" copyrighted by www.sig.com?
A 95% confidence interval is quite standard in statistic measurements. But 95% confidence interval for a model is very high, given that we have exactly one sample to model on. I'm guessing most of the age ranges we see in the popular media are either 50,1% confidence (more likely than not) or just highest absolute probability (15% confidence it's this old, but any other equally big range is even less likely).
Still, this assumes that they have modeled the uncertainty of every unknown correctly. The model could still be revised to give other results.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
It's 15.6 Billion plus or minus 4.4 Billion. Jeez...
From what I understand, all matter that we can see in the universe comes from old stars. Hydrogen got together to form stars and when the stars spent up all the fuel, they exploded creating heavier elements. Right?
Well, with all of this new revelation that the universe is made up of 95% of "dark matter", do we really know that dark matter didn't create the hydrogen atoms? If scientists are trying to figure out the age of the universe by checking out how old distant stars are, do we really know that there was nothing before the stars formed?
Karma: NaN
in my first astro course at uva 10 years ago, the hubble constant had our universe's age at about 15 billion years. the estimates of this constant (the rate of expansion of spacetime) have not been significantly altered in the last 10 years.
so why is this news?
La via sola al paradiso incommincia nel inferno
If this trend continues, I expect that in twenty years or so, there'll be a headline "A scientific research team states that it's 99% sure the Universe was created before last Tuesday"?
--
"This isn't the post you're looking for. Move along."
This article does not provide very much scientific proof about the estimated age of the universe. If this is a revolutionary study, why not provide an abstract (or a link to an abstract) of the research report? That way, instead of the general public just believing the "almighty scientists," they can look over the research themselves and come to their own conclusion pertaining to the accuracy of the conclusions. I'm tired of all of this hype in the media lately...scientific and political. Let's get back to the facts people.
-> Sometimes, you just gotta break free from the shackles of proprietary code.
...the upper limit on the age of the the fuzzy leftovers in the back of my fridge.
This reminds me of those booths where they guess your age and weight at the carnival...
I think I'm just gonna roll 2 dice, a 20 sided (for the years, in billions) and a 10 sided (for the decimal) and call that *my* estimate. Any takers?
--trb
My estimate of the age of the universe is far superior and 100% accurate.
The universe is between one second and infinite years old.
Sheesh, you'd think they'd be able to narrow it down to within a billion years.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
If everything scientists know about the creation is completely and totally wrong and the universe were in fact created just hours ago and all of your memories were created at the same time, then how would you know any different?
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
Yes you can have it both ways. Otherwise:
The Bible states that the world is flat. Can you accept its round or are you suggesting that you can either be a Christian or a heathen 'round-worldist'.
Oh and since Adam and Eve are key to religion... then what about those people who weren't descended from them, those people that Cane was worried would smite him after he killed his brother. And those people whose daughter he married and lived with in the land of Nod.
Etc, etc, ad nauseam (see (Bible Contradictions))
The Bible contradicts itself constantly. You have to be able to rationally treat those contradictions. I can call myself a Christian without treating the Bible as literal truth. Can you?
This ties in with a /. article that was posted a few days ago about a possible modification to the Special Theory of Relativity to include the Planck energy, which can be found here . When you start to talk about the very beginnings of the universe, the various Planck dimensions come into play, and set an upper limit to what can actually ever be known about the conditions at the start. These dimensions are described by combinations of Planck's constant h, the speed of light c, and the universal gravitational constant G- for instance, Planck length is (Gh/c^3)^1/2, which equals roughly
10^-33 cm. This was roughly the size of the entire universe at the Planck time, Gh/c^5)^1/2, which is about 10^-43 seconds. From these arise other scales such as the Planck energy, 1.2 x 10^19 GeV and the Planck temperature, 1.4 x 10^32 K. At these conditions, the laws of physics as we know them did not apply. There are a variety of ways to explain why this should be the case. In many Grand Unified Theories, the four fundamental forces (gravity, electromagnetic, strong, weak) are considered to be aspects of a unified superforce. There is evidence to back this up- at energies that can be achieved in particle acclerators, the weak and electromagnetic forces merge to form an electroweak force. The strong force is expected to join in at about 10^14 GeV, well beyond our present reach, unfortunately. Gravity, oddly enough the weakest of the forces (but with infinite range) holds out until the Planck energy. A universe at these conditions cannot be described by known physical laws- it is pure chaos. The universe is too hot, too dense for particles as we understand them to exist.
Another way of looking at the universe at Planck time arises from the equations for the dimensions themselves. The relationships among the equations are no accident- there are Heisenberg Uncertainty relations that exist between many of the quantities involved. As such, you can imagine the universe at Planck time to have the interesting property that completely random quantum fluctuations will occur, and will occur on the order of the Planck length. The thing is, the Planck length is also the size of the universe at this instant. So in essence, we're talking about a period where the universe is completely undefined, and it becomes meaningless to talk of things like particles and forces and even space and time itself. Now, clearly, the universe exited this phase somehow- else the universe as we know it could not exist. Why did this occur? Well, since an experiment at such energies is not likely to be possible, this question is perhaps best relegated to the realm of metaphysics. As to what happened prior to this period, there really was no "prior." The four dimensions (3 space, 1 time) that we know and love are a part of the whole universe package- the universe is not just expanding its space, but its spacetime. In fact, there are some theories (like supersymmetry) which predict the existence of many more dimensions, like 10 or 26 (they make the math work out nicely). As to why we cannot see them now, the idea is that extremely early in the history of our universe, the rest (meaning those other than the 4 we notice) folded up on themselves, and are currently sized (which brings us back to) on the order of the Planck length.
"FDA staff reviewers expressed concern about the number of patients who were left out of the study because they died."
> This IS science. The only thing you can "prove" is that the universe exists NOW
Oh, yeah? Prove it.
You're demanding an absurd standard of proof. "The universe exists" has already been proven for a long time to the satisfaction of the majority of the scientific community.
That's how "proof" in science works. (In other areas such as law, "proof" is held to a different standard.) You come up with a hypothesis that explains the evidence, write a paper, and the paper gets distributed for peer review. If the hypothesis is coherently written and your logic and methodology is found to be acceptable by these people, it gets published in a journal. Once it's in a journal it is subject to verification or rebuttal by other groups who also have access to physical evidence and can test your hypothesis via experimentation or observation.
The idea is that while one scientist may fool himself for a long time, and a large number of scientists may fool themselves for a short time, it's very rare that a large number of scientists will be fooled for a long time. (Although once in a while it occasionally happens.) This technique was developed only in recent centuries and has worked extremely well.
By this standard it has been conclusively proven many times that the universe does indeed exist. If you want to seriously promote within the scientific community the theory that the universe might not exist, you should gather the evidence you're using, write a paper explaining how this evidence supports your theory, and submit it to a journal for peer review.
Likewise, if birth is a meaningless event in the moral development of a being, why celebrate Jesus' birth so loudly, rather than his conception? Why not send the Wise Men and shepards and stars and stuff to pay homage to the implanted egg in Mary's uterus?
Great news, I have refined your theory to 100% certainty it is between 38 years and googleplexplex-plex-plex^googol-plexity-plex-plex etc..........it was around in 1964, but before that I'm not sure since I wasn't paying attention before I was born.
Evolution underlies most of molecular level biology these days.
"From the earliest times of which we have any knowledge, Naturalism and Supernaturalism have consciously, or unconsciously, competed and struggled with one another; and the varying fortunes of the contest are written in the records of the course of civilisation, from those of Egypt and Babylonia, six thousand years ago, down to those of our own time and people.
These records inform us that, so far as men have paid attention to Nature, they have been rewarded for their pains. They have developed the Arts which have furnished the conditions of civilised existence; and the Sciences, which have been a progressive revelation of reality and have afforded the best discipline of the mind in the methods of discovering truth. They have accumulated a vast body of universally accepted knowledge; and the conceptions of man and of society, of morals and of law, based upon that knowledge, are every day more and more, either openly or tacitly, acknowledged to be the foundations of right action.
History also tells us that the field of the supernatural has rewarded its cultivators with a harvest, perhaps not less luxuriant, but of a different character. It has produced an almost infinite diversity of Religions. These, if we set aside the ethical concomitants upon which natural knowledge also has a claim, are composed of information about Supernature; they tell us of the attributes of supernatural beings, of their relations with Nature, and of the operations by which their interference with the ordinary course of events can be secured or averted. It does not appear, however, that supernaturalists have attained to any agreement about these matters..."
T H Huxley, Essays upon Some Controverted Questions (1892)
Or monkeys with dartboards. One dart for the lower limit and another dart for the upper limit.
http://www.aish.com/societywork/sciencenature/Age_ of_the_Universe.asp
This page has a very interested and lengthy article where the researcher goes about proving the age of the universe to be at around 16 Billion years old, which is totally in line with scientific estimates. A very good read, if nothing else, it was thought provoking.