On 4/23/2014 9:49 AM, 'Chris de Morsella <[email protected]>' via
Everything List wrote:
Do someone know the estimate of the age of the universe at the time of Mark Twain?
Einstein though it was infinite, and I thought that many physicists (including believer
in Big Bang(s)) don't exclude that.
Didn't most people still subscribe to that English or Scottish Bishops calculation based
on bible verse that concluded the earth and the universe was some 6000 or so years ago
in 4400 BC? There are far too many, in this country at least -- who still do believe in
this fairy tale.
Chris
In the late 1800's William Thompson (Lord Kelvin) estimated the age of the Sun and he
finally settled on a value of 20 to 40 million years. This was based on gravitational
energy - nuclear fusion was unknown. Darwin noted that this was to short a time for
evolution to have taken place, and so in a sense Darwin used an anthropic inference to
postulate nuclear energy. Twain would have known Thompson's estimate and so might have
said "millions" based on it. But, aside from the Abrahamic superstitions, educated people
like Twain generally assumed the universe was static and eternal. In which case he might
well have said "billions".
Brent
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