HOW WE FINALLY FIGURED OUT THE AGE OF THE EARTH

 

MAY 14, 2018

 

FEATURING:

 

Mano Singham, PhD

Physicist and retired Director of the University Center for Innovation in Teaching and Education at Case Western Reserve University

 

You might think that answering the question about how old the Earth is should be fairly straightforward. But that is not the case. Over time the values arrived at have changed quite dramatically and resulted in heated controversies involving the fields of physics, geology, biology, paleontology, solar astrophysics, cosmology, and theology. Depending on who you talked to and when you talked to them, you would have got wildly different answers.

Over a period of over two thousand years, the Earth started out being considered really old, even possibly infinitely old, then became really young (thousands of years), then became sort of old again (hundred of millions of years), then younger again (tens of millions of years) until now it is considered really old (billions of years).

This presentation deals with how all these different areas of science struggled with different answers to this question before they converged, and how non-scientific factors influenced even the scientific analyses. It is a case study of the more general phenomenon of how science addresses controversies and works its way to a consensus view.

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CLEVELAND PUBLIC LIBRARY BOOK PICKS:

If the discussion topic for this month's Science Cafe has the gears turning and you are interested in continuing your quest for information, click here for just a small sample of what's available at the Cleveland Public Library on the subject and/or related topics.

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EVENT DETAILS:

 

WHERE:

The Music Box Supper Club - Concert Hall

1148 Main Avenue

Cleveland, Ohio 44113

 

WHEN:

May 14, 2018

 

WHO:

Sponsored by Case Western Reserve University chapter of Sigma Xi, WCPN ideastream, and the Music Box Supper Club.

 

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