Was the 14.7 billion years time frame a matter of convenience or scientific fact?

Question

Do we have supporting scientific facts or was this 14.7 arrived at by simply saying it took that long from there to here?

Answer 1

You refer to the age of the universe? Astronomical measurements are the main basis for such estimates, and radioactive dating also contributes. I won't try to go into detail, but the astromomical data include recession velocities of distant stars, star lifetime and star evolution sequences.
See the refs for a sampling of cosmological age estimates and their sources.

Answer 2

The Universe acts as though it is 14B or so years old.

I think this number is fuzzier than the 4.55B or so years old the Earth acts. What I mean is the questions we put to the Earth or Universe in scientific experiments give us answers that make sense only if we say the Earth or Universe are about that old.

There is no way I can think of to exclude the possibility that God did make the Earth 2000 years ago and made it so that it acted in every way as if it were far older. In fact, God could have made it all 2 hours ago and made it so that it seemed far older, including making us with formed memories which are really all artificial. Since that path of reasoning leads to madness or worse, I prefer to think that if God went to all that trouble to fool us, then the least we can do is play along.

Answer 3

The 14.7 B years that the universe has existed is an estimate based on good science. For lots of information, a Yahoo Search: age of universe

will assist.

Good luck.

Answer 4

The Earth is widely believed to be about 4.55 billion years old. There are some other theories but most data from radiometric dating and uranium-lead decay Concordia curves lead us to this 4.55 byo figure.

Answer 5

Definately conveinience. The Earth is only a couple thousand years old.