Talk:Age of the universe

Why is religious moniker such as Creationism put in the title area?

Age of universe is a Scientific topic, not a religious one. It should be removed.

Providing religious monikers like Creationism does two things: - Equates religious theories with a scientific one - Provides one particular religious view over so many other religious views.

It should be removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 135.245.10.1 (talk) 19:16, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree strongly. I removed the disambiguation bit here and in the article, Age of Earth.Desoto10 (talk) 20:19, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

And somebody put it back as well as the one for Age of the Earth. I really do not understand this. Do we have a caveat in all biological/physical/scientific articles stating that "this is the scienitific viewpoint, for the religious viewpoint go to ------?"Desoto10 (talk) 22:57, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

No. There are few scientific topics that overlap with major religious, cultural, and philosophical worldviews the way that the origins of the Earth and the universe do. Thus, there is little danger that every scientific article will necessitate such a disambiguation.

Alternatively, this article could be renamed "Scientific views on the age of the universe" and "Age of the universe" could be turned into a pure disambiguation page. Uncle Dick (talk) 23:17, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely oppose renaming either article. Doing so only serves to give undue weight to opinions which have no evidential backing. An article on "The Age of the Universe" should give complete deference to demonstrable fact, and at best link to religious opinions on the matter with a dab link. See WP:Fringe and WP:PSCI for policy on this. I also give weak support to keeping the dab link; If that's what some readers come to this article looking for, then we should help them find it. Jess_talk|_edits 23:54, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

"Evidentialism" is not the criteria for inclusion or exclusion of content in a article. Notability is. That said, I tend to agree that the article is fine as it is. As you have noted, the purpose of disambiguation is to help people find the information they are looking for on Wikipedia. It has nothing to do with promoting an agenda. Uncle Dick (talk) 00:09, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I wasn't talking about inclusion criteria. I was talking about weight. To rename this article in favor of a disambig page would be ceding equal weight from the scientific view on the age of the earth to various religious opinions. This is a violation of WP:Fringe and WP:PSCI. Just because something is notable doesn't mean it should be listed as prominently or be given "equal time". In any case, since we're both on the same page about this, there's little point in discussing some hypothetical position neither of us holds. ;) Jess_talk|_edits 00:52, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Strong priors & error bars

Under strong priors, we have: "To best avoid the problem, it is common to show two sets of uncertainties; one related to the actual measurement and the other related to the systematic errors of the model being used."

Can someone insert the (or an) estimate of the age of the universe that shows BOTH error bars? At the moment we only have one, throughout. Willbown (talk) 12:33, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

There is not a scientific consensus on the age of the universe.

The page gives the impression that the age of the universe is 13.75 ± 0.17 billion years.

In fact, this is only a hypothesis, and an untested one.http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:UserLogin&type=signup There is currently insufficient data to know, or reliably estimate, the age of the universe.

There are varying age estimations, depending on assumptions about the shape of the universe and the relative amounts of ordinary and dark matter in the universe. These variances are not ± 0.17 billion years, they are ± 4 - 5 billion years.

Even NASA (http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/uni_age.html) state that scientists USED to think the universe was 13.75 years old. This is no longer the scientific consensus.

This page needs some major editing by an expert in the field, or deletion. It is better for Wikipedia to say nothing on a subject that give incorrect information.

115.187.248.212 (talk) 09:43, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm. I don't think you read all the way through the NASA page that you cited. In the final section "WMAP Can Measure the Age of the Universe" it says "WMAP has been able to determine these parameters with an accuracy of better than than 3% of the critical density. In turn, knowing the composition with this precision, we can estimate the age of the universe to about 1%: 13.7 ± 0.13 billion years" (my emphasis). This overlaps the 13.75 ± 0.17 billion years range cited in the article lead, and certainly does not support a 4-5 billion year uncertainty. Do you have any other sources for your claims ? Gandalf61 (talk) 08:46, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

• Why does everyone assume constants are constant? All this assumes time and space are invariant. This is all based on our current perception and observation technology. In 100 years, will this forecast change significantly? Time and space cannot be invariant at the time of the big bang. And there is dark energy out there that could change our perceptions. Cosmologists - be aware! Comments Welcome! --71.245.164.83 (talk) 01:36, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

So its impossible to predict what will happen in 100 years for scientists, but it makes perfect sense for you to predict what scientists will predict and observe and the conclusions they will come to 100 years from now, while justifying the remarks by using the opinions of those same scientists who you already claimed are wrong? Interesting. 74.132.249.206 (talk) 16:08, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

I edited the lede to first define the term and then give the current best estimate. --agr (talk) 10:54, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

This is contradictory

The region visible from Earth (the observable universe) is a sphere with a radius of about 46 billion light years.

The estimated age of the universe is 13.75 ± 0.17 billion years, the time since the Big Bang.

So the universe is more light years wide than it is years old? Did it grow faster than the speed of light or something? 184.96.254.193 (talk) 04:14, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Please see: http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=575. Or many other sources on the topic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 35.9.55.163 (talk) 21:04, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

So the answer to his question is "yes"? This article is very long. Is it more light years wide than it is years old? A simple one-word answer, please. Chrisrus (talk) 07:29, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the universe is more light years wide than it is years old (more precisely, the radius of the observable universe in light years is greater than the age of the universe in years). No, this is not contradictory. Radiation emitted from the edge of the currently observable universe (which we can observe as cosmic microwave background radiation) has taken 13.75 billion years to reach us, but during that time the edge at which that radiation was emitted has moved away from us, and is now about 46 billion light years distant. Yes, this means that the comoving distance between us and the edge at which the radiation was emitted is currently expanding at a rate that is greater than the speed of light - but it wasn't doing that 13.75 billion years ago when the radition was emitted, which is why we can observe that radiation. Gandalf61 (talk) 14:36, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Way to go Gandalf! Everything (speed of light, etc.) changes to preserve whatever Earth bound physicists rationalize about the 'universe' [which of course they cannot see or embrace]. A great spin off to the Big Bang puts Earth smack dab in the middle of the universe. So Ptolemy's priests have the last laugh. Especially since the Marching Morons are becoming a real phenomena, and not just fictional characters. Just keep saying "Earth, Fire, Water" ... that's all you need to know! DasV (talk) 19:18, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

What in Gandalf's answer implied the speed of light had changed? If 2 objects move away from each other, and each is travelling at the speed of light, the DISTANCE between them is increasing at twice the speed of light. So relative to one of these objects, the other would SEEM to be moving away at twice the speed of light, but only because the reference point (i.e. the first object) is also moving. Light itself would not change speed. (Which is kinda the whole point of distinguishing between ACTUAL universe and OBSERVABLE universe.)

Thanks Gandalf, for this brief but clear answer. Chrisrus (talk) 01:25, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

It has been estimated that our solar system makes one revolution around our galaxy each 250 million years. If the Universe is 14 billion years old the solar system has revolved around the galaxy 56 times... I find this highly improbable. The light / energy measurments are seriously flawed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.25.174.243 (talk) 06:18, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

No cite for age given in first sentence

The citation given for the age of the universe in the first sentence, 13.75 Ga, doesn't contain the text "13.75" anywhere. Where does the figure given come from? ciphergoth (talk) 15:13, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I noted that too, so I searched for a source with a real figure, and got one WMAP figure on nasa.gov from July 2010 that claimed 13.7±0.13. That I inserted instead of the previous possibly unduly synthesized value. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 19:16, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

I found that there's actually a source for the figure 13.75±0.11 Gyr, so I restored that value and sourced it properly this time. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 19:28, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Obviously from God, duh! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.31.70.53 (talk) 21:21, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

God doesn't lie. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 19:16, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Big Bang is a theory... just like there was a theory the earth was flat at one time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.25.174.243 (talk) 06:23, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

second citation needed

• Can we get a second citation, preferably from a primary source (e.g. NASA), confirming the value of 13.75 gigayears?? The first citation given in the article here seems reputable, but a Google .gov search for "age of universe" provides 3 citations from NASA for the value 13.7 Ga [1] [2] [3], and 1 citation from NASA for the value 13.73 Ga [4], none of which confirms the value given here on Wikipedia (since 13.75 rounds to 13.8 for any 3-digit approximations). Nikki (talk) 16:27, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

All recent sources will give an age of around 13.7 years. The hundredth and thousandth place is more debatable, which is why there is a plus or minus sign. I don't think we should worry too much about such specific numbers. Cadiomals (talk) 16:34, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

In addition, the cited source (Jarosik et al) is a peer-reviewed publication (which is the main paper presenting the most recent results from NASA's WMAP mission). A peer-reviewed publication is preferable to the NASA web sites found with Google. The cited paper also goes through the recent estimates, essentially all of which are consistent (within the stated uncertainties) with the value found by Jarosik et al. —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 00:50, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Dubious formula

The formula given after "So a rough estimate of the age of the universe comes from the inverse of the Hubble parameter, ..." seems like mathematical gibberish gives a correction to the Hubble time based on how much the Hubble constant deviates from 72 km/s/mpc. That does not seem to be what is called for from the flow of the text. There is a much simpler derivation of 1/H₀ in the Hubble's law article. Any reason not to use that?--agr (talk) 15:19, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

silly question

From my layman understanding of things, I am a tad confused. If there were something hypothetical outside of the universe (a restaurant, say) that was observing it forming, due to relativity and the concentration of matter, it would be really slow/still, implying that universe is infinitely old if seen from outside of it. Is that correct? --Squidonius (talk) 20:59, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Half correct — slow and still, but very young. Imagine you're accelerating to the edge of the actual universe (much larger than the observable universe). To meet this boundary, you would have to go faster than the speed of light, which corresponds to going back into time. As you get closer and closer to the edge of the universe, you're going back in time and the universe is getting smaller and hotter. By all possible mechanisms you would not be able to pass through this transition intact, but somehow you survive and eventually cross the boundary. You're now ``outside´´! Where is the universe? When you left, it was unbelievably small and hot, so instead of being infinitely old, it's the reverse, infinitely young — maybe smaller than Planck scales. But now do you get to see the universe expand? As you were accelerating, time in the universe was also slowing down until when you reached the boundary, when time had stopped. So in other words, from the ``outside´´, the universe is not visible and not expanding — i.e. it doesn't exist! Russell Harper (talk) 19:49, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

wrong # for age of the universe in seconds

I just checked this and believe the order of magnitude should be 10^17, not 10^15. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.138.65.98 (talk) 00:53, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

wolframalpha gives a slightly different time: 4.336 ± 0.035 × 10^17 seconds, calculated from 13.75 Gyr. [5] — Firsthuman (talk) 21:13, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Correction to best estimate?

Lawrence Krauss said that we can now estimate to "almost 4 decimal places" and he rounded off to 2 places to say "13.72 billion years is the age of the universe" in this video, around 18:45:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7ImvlS8PLIo#!

This video was recorded in 2009. Is the number listed at the header of this article -- 13.75 plus or minus 0.11 billion -- more recent than that?

- Dave Davemuscato (talk) 12:23, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

The citation is: N. Jarosik et al (2011), which seems later. Vsmith (talk) 13:17, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Estimate for age not believable

It has been estimated that our solar system makes one revolution around our galaxy each 250 million years. If the Universe is 14 billion years old the solar system has revolved around the galaxy 56 times... Considering the earth has made many 10s of thousands of revolutions around the sun and remained fairly stable in its position, I find it highly improbable that our solar system has only made 56 revolutions around our galaxy. The light / energy measurements are seriously flawed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.25.174.243 (talk) 06:34, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

The Solar System hasn't existed for as long as the Universe. The Solar System formed about 4.5 billion years ago, which means its about a third the age of the Universe and it has revolved around the galaxy only about 18 times. Also, the Earth has made much more than tens of thousands of revolutions around the Sun, it has made about 4.5 billion (corresponding with its age) since one revolution is one year. I don't understand what is not believable about the estimated age of the universe so please clarify. Cadiomals (talk) 22:07, 18 March 2012 (UTC)