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The oldest exposed rock on the Earth would be Keith Richards, correct?
But he is only 71 years old?
Still thinking. What about Led Zepplin?
QV please:Hold on a minute. This whole matter of the age of the Earth was settled around about the same time that ELVIS (the soon to become King of Rock 'n Roll) recorded with SUN RECORDS.
Good on yer Clair Patterson!
Didn't you ask me to vacate the thread when I was answering honestly and to the best of my ability?-- this thread will be for serious discussion.
Didn't you ask me to vacate the thread when I was answering honestly and to the best of my ability?
Maybe I'm taking your elementary school class suggestion too literally, but...
Imagine there's a bird called the isoduck that lays eggs. And you're an isoduck farmer, and you have lots of isoducks and lots of isoduck eggs.
You discover that if you have a bunch of isoduck eggs, half of them will hatch into isoduck chicks every hour.
So if you put 16 eggs in a big box, after an hour, there would be 8 eggs and 8 chicks. And after another hour there would be only 4 eggs and 12 chicks. And so on.
One day one of your farmhands shows you a box. Inside it are 3 eggs and 9 chicks. He tells you that he only put eggs into the box, but now there are both eggs and chicks. You tell him, "I know when you put the eggs in the box."
He asks you how you know that. So kids, how do you know?
That's right! You know that half of the eggs hatch every hour. If there are 3 eggs now, that means an hour ago there were six eggs, and that means instead of 9 chicks, there were only 6 chicks and hour ago. And with six eggs and six chicks, obviously one more hour ago, there were 12 eggs. So your farmhand put the eggs into the box two hours ago.
By counting the number of eggs and chicks, you can calculate how long ago the eggs were put in a box.
Now the isoduck is made up. But in real life there are certain atoms that are radioactive. These radioactive atoms, also called isotopes, don't hatch into ducks, but they hatch into different kinds of atoms. For instance, one kind of potassium isotope hatches into an argon isotope.
And they hatch with the same rules as the duck. Only it isn't half of them every hour. It takes 1.3 billion years for half of them to hatch!
But the rules are the same, by counting the number of potassiums and argons, you can calculate how long ago the isotopes were put in a box.
Of course, there aren't any potassium farmers that put potassium isotopes in a box. But there are certain kinds of rocks that have potassium in them. And argon is a gas, so it shouldn't be found in a rock like this. But when we look, we find there are little argon isotopes trapped inside the rock! When the rock was hot and molten, the argon would all bubble away like steam escaping. So when the rock cools and gets hard, there's no argon inside. So all the argon that we see today came from the potassium isotopes hatching.
By counting the number of potassium and argon isotopes, you can calculate how long ago the rock cooled down and became solid.
And when we do that, we find that the oldest rocks on earth we find are more than 4 billion years old.
Which brings up a second point.Now if you don't mind, I have some chicks to attend to: (link to follow:
You even underlined it.No links, no quotes, only simple explanations by you.
<edit>
Several radiometric dating methods involve half-lives in the billions of years. They give consistent answers that the objects in the solar system (including the earth) are 4.5 billion years old.
Which brings up a second point.
Didn't you say this in your OP?
You even underlined it.
And yours aren't, Joe?Links to websites, Charlie.
Correct, Charlie.
now that was a darned good explanation.Maybe I'm taking your elementary school class suggestion too literally, but...
Imagine there's a bird called the isoduck that lays eggs. And you're an isoduck farmer, and you have lots of isoducks and lots of isoduck eggs.
You discover that if you have a bunch of isoduck eggs, half of them will hatch into isoduck chicks every hour.
So if you put 16 eggs in a big box, after an hour, there would be 8 eggs and 8 chicks. And after another hour there would be only 4 eggs and 12 chicks. And so on.
One day one of your farmhands shows you a box. Inside it are 3 eggs and 9 chicks. He tells you that he only put eggs into the box, but now there are both eggs and chicks. You tell him, "I know when you put the eggs in the box."
He asks you how you know that. So kids, how do you know?
That's right! You know that half of the eggs hatch every hour. If there are 3 eggs now, that means an hour ago there were six eggs, and that means instead of 9 chicks, there were only 6 chicks and hour ago. And with six eggs and six chicks, obviously one more hour ago, there were 12 eggs. So your farmhand put the eggs into the box two hours ago.
By counting the number of eggs and chicks, you can calculate how long ago the eggs were put in a box.
Now the isoduck is made up. But in real life there are certain atoms that are radioactive. These radioactive atoms, also called isotopes, don't hatch into ducks, but they hatch into different kinds of atoms. For instance, one kind of potassium isotope hatches into an argon isotope.
And they hatch with the same rules as the duck. Only it isn't half of them every hour. It takes 1.3 billion years for half of them to hatch!
But the rules are the same, by counting the number of potassiums and argons, you can calculate how long ago the isotopes were put in a box.
Of course, there aren't any potassium farmers that put potassium isotopes in a box. But there are certain kinds of rocks that have potassium in them. And argon is a gas, so it shouldn't be found in a rock like this. But when we look, we find there are little argon isotopes trapped inside the rock! When the rock was hot and molten, the argon would all bubble away like steam escaping. So when the rock cools and gets hard, there's no argon inside. So all the argon that we see today came from the potassium isotopes hatching.
By counting the number of potassium and argon isotopes, you can calculate how long ago the rock cooled down and became solid.
And when we do that, we find that the oldest rocks on earth we find are more than 4 billion years old.
Then all of a sudden, you start waxing comical in a thread you started for serious replies with simple ways of explaining them.
now that was a darned good explanation.
but . . . (wouldn't you know it)
the above only applies if the box always remains locked.
IOW you don't know if other isoducks has been snuck into the box.
in the real world this is known as leeching and cannot be stopped.
What's the deal with people like say the well known Dr. Neil Tyson-DeGrasse and Co. (astrophysicists) who do this in a slightly different way -- something about the PULSATING STARS?
Your original question, when finally provided, was: "Question: Please explain how you would calculate the age of the Earth?" [my emphasis]
I'm not sure pulsars can do that.
I'll say this again (but I'm getting tired of hearing myself whine about it):Forgive me for a having a little fun --
I'm not sure either, but then I've only recently read of Henrietta Leavitt's discovery in 1908 -- and something called 'period-luminosity relation'
i've run across an excellent treatise on radiometric dating.I imagine the most likely thing is that argon would leach out of rocks, and make rocks look younger than they actually are.
But in any case, this and many other methods have been used on many different samples. If leaching is causing all sorts of problems, why do these different methods involving different elements all yield the same answer for the maximum rock age? Why do they cluster around 4.5 billion years ago as the maximal age or earth rocks? Meteorites are in space, nothing can leach into them. Why do they also consistently give that same age of 4.5 billion years?
Is it all a coincidence that multiple faulty methods give the same result? It is just not plausible.
I agree that the entertainment factor of certain posters (myself included) is part of the reason why some people read this forum, however as we are here to discuss Creation and Evolution -- this thread will be for serious discussion. ( my question is below this amazing photograph )
Apparently the age of our earth can be calculated in a number of very complicated ways.
NB: No links, no quotes, only simple explanations by you.
Please use simple words, simple enough for an elementary school class to get a proper handle on the data.
Thanks in advance.
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