Naked Science Forum

Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: acecharly on 10/10/2012 12:10:51

Title: earths age 6000 years or 4.5 billion?
Post by: acecharly on 10/10/2012 12:10:51
Can someone tell me if the earth was measured by a certain group of individuals to be 6000 years old at what speed would they need to be travelling for relativity to mean the rest of us believed the earth was 4.5 billion years old.

Cheers

Ace
Title: Re: earths age 6000 years or 4.5 billion?
Post by: Soul Surfer on 11/10/2012 23:45:26
Sorry it does not work that way acecharly the age of the earth is determined by the observations of processes that are not related in any way to time dilation processes associate with either relativity or gravity.
Title: Re: earths age 6000 years or 4.5 billion?
Post by: Cheese2001 on 13/10/2012 00:10:36
The group of people who believe the Earth is only 6,000 years old use written historical texts of genealogies to measure back to the beginning.  The most common measure is using the books of the Old Testament.  Genealogies are included which state what father gave birth to what son, and at what age each died.  Using the ages provided, you can count backwards to approximately 6,000 years old.  A nice layout of the timeline appears at:  http://www.bibleistrue.com/qna/qna63dating.htm.

Experimental observations  point to an age of approximately 4,500 million years.
Title: Re: earths age 6000 years or 4.5 billion?
Post by: JP on 13/10/2012 00:18:06
It would also be possible to fly out on a spaceship as soon as earth formed, then turn around and come back.  If you went fast enough (and assuming you could live that long), your watch would read 6000 years.  The earth, meanwhile, would be 4.5 billion years old.  If the only measurement you used was your watch, you'd conclude the earth was 6000 years old. 

However, if you went down to the surface and took various measurements, you'd find the earth was 4.5 billion years old.  All relativity tells you is that your watch reads a shorter time than the watch of someone standing on the earth depending on how fast you went.
Title: Re: earths age 6000 years or 4.5 billion?
Post by: flr on 13/10/2012 06:25:27
Can someone tell me if the earth was measured by a certain group of individuals to be 6000 years old at what speed would they need to be travelling for relativity to mean the rest of us believed the earth was 4.5 billion years old.

Cheers

Ace

In order to have their clock so much slowed down (relative to the clock of an Earth observer) they need a speed relative to Earth of 99.99999999993827 % from the speed of light.
Title: Re: earths age 6000 years or 4.5 billion?
Post by: Ophiolite on 13/10/2012 14:58:58
From which we can conclude that creationists are either wrong or amazingly fast.
Title: Re: earths age 6000 years or 4.5 billion?
Post by: Bored chemist on 13/10/2012 20:37:31
From which we can conclude that creationists are either wrong or amazingly fast.
Or amazingly fast, but still wrong, because , having found themselves here on the earth, they don't realise that it has been round for longer than they expect from looking at their watches.
Title: Re: earths age 6000 years or 4.5 billion?
Post by: flr on 13/10/2012 23:47:59
From which we can conclude that creationists are either wrong or amazingly fast.

Or maybe we are amazingly fast while they are incredibly slow. :)
Title: Re: earths age 6000 years or 4.5 billion?
Post by: Ophiolite on 14/10/2012 04:08:25
Or maybe we are amazingly fast while they are incredibly slow. :)
That, of course, would depend upon your reference frame.