Atheists..........?

Question

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I have a 3cm candle that is burning/decaying at the rate of 1cm/hr, all other factors being constant (ie room temp, wind speed, .....).

Q1) How long has the candle been burning?
Q2) How old is the earth?

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Where are the 5 Solas? You need glasses?

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It is amazing no one know how long a simple candle burns; yet how no one was at Creation, and able to know 4-5 billions years??

Fantastic?!!?



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Answer 1

Good one.

"Pick up a physics book and read about radioactivity, nuclear decay, and the half-lives of certain isotopes."

To whomever said that - how can they accurately know how much of a certain isotope there was in the first place? That was her point. You didn't know how tall the candle was in the first place either - because you weren't there observing when it was lit. And you weren't there observing when the earth was formed. All you can go on is speculation.

Answer 2

Oh, you're trying to do a little bait and switch, and by such a wrong-headed analogy, try to negate radiocarbon dating. You need to know more about how science works, my friend.

Q1. But anyway, I'll play: If the candle material has a half-life that I am confident about (example: half-life = 1 cm per 24 hours), and I know how much candle material is currently present (3 cm remain), it is reasonably easy to extrapolate backwards in time to show that the candle was 6 cm tall 24 hours ago. And it was 12 cm tall 48 hours ago, and so forth. If I also have information on general stability of candles (example: candles can only be 24 cm tall for physical reasons-- (and in the case of aged rocks, this has to do with a number of isotope concentrations and other factors too long to get into here), it is possible by simple algebra to determine when the candle began to burn. In this case, the candle began to burn 96 hours ago, given the assumptions and knowledge we have abound candle materials, candle development, candle burning, and so forth. I might be off a couple of hours, but I'd bet I'd be pretty close.

Q2. Using this and other methods, the earth is approx 4.3- 4.5 billion years old.

You need to know more about half-life and radio-isotopes before you pose a question like this. If you phrased it as a genuine interest to learn about how physical principles work, I'd be more prone to engage you. But I'm sensing that's not how you meant the question, and that is unfortunate.

Answer 3

Q1-The answer is unknown without further investigation of contextual evidence. If one checked wax deposits on the surface that the candle is sitting on, the deposition of carbon on the ceiling, things such as isotopic signatures in the surrounding air and other factors, one may be able to determine how much candle has been burnt.
Q2- 4.6 billion years old based on contextual evidence.

Answer 4

Do you realize that not all Christians (and theists) believe the world is 6,000 years old?

Do you realize that if radioactive decay was as quick as it would need to be for such a young universe, the heat being produced by this rapid decay would have made Adam, Eve, and Noah "toast"?

Do you realize that Lord Kelvin contested Darwin's theory because strict thermodynamics said the Sun must be AT LEAST 20 million years old? (in Kelvin and Darwin's time, no one knew about radioactivity)

Answer 5

1) Unanswerable, since we don't know how long the original candle was.

2) Between 4-5 billion years old.

If this is some sort of analogy, I don't get it.

Edit: OK, seriously. You really don't even need much understanding of physics to see why this is so wrong. Some math would help, too.

Answer 6

Are you burning your candle at both ends? If so, the burn rate should increase by a factor of 2.

Mother Earth never tells her age and one should never ask. It's rude.

Answer 7

The candle has been burning for 46 hours - my old book says so!
The earth is as old as the piles and piles of scientific research claim it is - that's the best possible answer given the information present.

Answer 8

When did you light the candle?

The current estimate is around 5 billion years.

Answer 9

I got one for you:

If "Sola" means "alone", then why are there 5 Solas?

DOH!

edit: I'm wearing glasses but I still don't see the explanation ...

Pick up a physics book and read about radioactivity, nuclear decay, and the half-lives of certain isotopes.

Answer 10

Q1) Unknown

Q2) ~4.5 billion years old by multiple methods:
a) The time for the core to cool adjusted for radioactive decay and tidal friction.
b) The age of the Sun based on power output and percentage of fuel consumed.
c) Radiometric dating of terrestrial and extraterrestrial rocks.

Unlike Q1, we have the means to determine what was there at the start.