If the universe is an explosion, it could only be 18 billion years old?

Question

I recently read a paper put out by experts of explosions and astronomers. They all said that universe was probably started by an explosion as is commonly beleived. (it is expanding and slowing down, which are charicteristics of an explosion) But they also said that if it is an explosion, the "Big Bang" could onlt have been about 18 billion years ago, calculated by the universe's rate of decay in speed (of expanding).

Since the theory of evolution says the universe is approxametly 65 billion years old, is it wrong?

Or did we evolve in high speed?

Answer 1

> Since the theory of evolution says the universe is approxametly 65 billion years old, is it wrong? <

??? Say what? The theory of evolution says no such thing. Whereever you got that number (65 billion) (source?), I would get a better source of information. I have never heard anything even *close* to 65 billion years, by *any* branch of science, as the age of the universe (much less the age of the earth).

The theory of evolution says absolutely nothing about the age of the universe (except to assume that the universe must be older than the earth). But yes, astronomers (who have nothing to do with the theory of evolution at all) calculate that the universe is somewhere between 11 and 20 billion years old ... but most astronomers put it at about 14 billion years old.

Geologists (who also have nothing to do with evolution) put the age of the earth at "only" 4.6 billion years old. (I say "only" in quotes because 4,600,000,000 years is still an unfathomably HUGE amount of time.)

The theory of evolution (which is all about biology, not the big bang or the age of the earth) says that 4.6 billion years was plenty for life, as we know it, to have evolved by the process of natural selection.

Perhaps you are confusing this with the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 *million* years ago, which paved the way for the rise of the mammals and subsequent human evolution?

Answer 2

Whoa, hold on there pal.

First of all, Evolution has nothing to say about the age of the universe.

Second of all, 14 billion years is the age of the universe - not 18.

Third, it is NOT commonly believed by physicists that the universe is the result of an explosion, and it is now known that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, not slowing down. The common belief is that the universe as we know it began with a rapid expansion. I know, that sounds like an explosion, but in this case it isn't; it's something quite different. "Big bang" was actually a term made up by a guy who didn't believe in the big bang. For some reason, it stuck.

Perhaps you are confusing the age of the universe with this: as far as we know, the dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago. That's the closest thing involving "65" and evolution that i know of.

There's nothing that says that the universe is 65 billion years old, though.

Answer 3

I think the current estimate is more like 14.5 billion years old. I don't think it's possible to measure 65 billion years old for the age of the universe, given the rate of expansion of space measured at great distances (the "true" Hubble Flow). The math is pretty straightforward, measuring the red shift of an object billions of light years away. That and the discovery of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMB), which is the light from the Big Bang itself, now stretched to a very long wavelength, with a temperature just a few degrees above absolute zero. That temperature/wavelength also suggests about 14.5 billion years. It can't be less than 12 billion years because we know stars that are approximately that old. By the same token, the age estimate may be off, but not by more than 50% - meaning maybe 28 billion years at the most, but I've never seen it suggested that the Big Bang happened 28 billion years ago.

Answer 4

A lot of people already spoke the truth. The universe is 13.7 billion years old, give or take some error.


However, remember, the Big Bang was coined as a JOKE NAME! It was NOT an explosion in the sense of a classical explosion, like a bomb. But rather, this 'explosion' was simply energy rushing away from other energy within whatever point in space it was contained...almost instantly. It went from about 1x10-35 M to the size of galaxies in a trillionth of a second!

Answer 5

According to NASA's WMAP satellite the approximate age of the universe is 13.7 billion years old. It has been determined that the universe is expanding, and actually speeding up. The study of distant galaxies shows them to be "Redshifted" meaning the wavelengths of their light are stretched out, moving towards the red side of the spectrum, and consequently they must be moving away from our vantage point in every direction. As previously mentioned this expansion is accelerating due to the presence of dark energy. (Scientists just got some great observational evidence regarding the existence of dark matter.)

Our solar system and the earth are roughly 4.5 billion years old and although I'm not completely up on evolution's exact details it only took a few billion years for us to evolve into our present state. It is entirely possible that the process of life began and was snuffed out several times by cataclysmic events during the earth's earlier years.

Answer 6

Where did you get your "evidence" from??. From the figures you've given, it's not very reliable "evidence" at that. From the evidence of U/Pb dating and such, the Solar System is regarded as being around 4.6 billion years old and the Universe itself, from studying the physical properties of its stars and other objects, is believed to be around 13.5-14 billion years old.

BTW, the Universe is actually accelerating in its expansion rate, due to the presence of "dark energy".....as defined via the Cosmological Constant.


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That's right, guys. It was Prof Fred Hoyle who coined the term "Big Bang" back in 1960. He was a proponent of the Steady State Theory and coined the term "Big Bang" as a derogatory comment on the way the theory explained how the universe came to be. Turned out that the proponents of the "Big Bang" got it essentially correct. Although since then, the Steady State Theory has had a number of revivals, though very few would still subscribe to it in essence.

Answer 7

Its really all just speculation isnt it? I mean what does it really matter? hey also I heard that we can tell which way stars are moving based upon the color of light they give off, and that they are all moving away from us, all of them!(red or blue shifting it is called) which would mean one of two things, 1) we are indeed the exact center (our solar system) of the entire universe and there is a god, 2) the "big bang" was not so much a bang, but instead the universe is expanding more like bread dough and every star is moving further away from every other star. Lastly i would like you to ask yourself this, if "the universe" began 18 million years ago, then what was it 100 billion years before that? now remember cause and effect, i mean something had to trigger this "big bang" because there is no spontaneous combustion right? i mean the universe wasnt a big motionless rock...and then...BOOM...for no reason whatsoever. So why would the big bang be considered the beggining? Dude people in 300 years from now are gonna look at these thoeries we have, which are consequently based upon happenstance, and they are gonna laugh there butts off at the fact we could even beieve this, the earth is round..BAH!

Answer 8

Wow, I don't know. It doesn't seem like the earth would be created and humans would evolve in only 18 billion years, but that must be the case. :) Very interesting question.

Answer 9

Do you BELIEVE in human science and theory? They just GUESS and they used the term "APPROXIMATLEY" which is something they don't really know and just give their opinion over their searching.

So don't get really nut about theory. It is not a fact.