DOCSLIB.ORG

The Age of the Universe: One Reality Viewed from Two Different Perspectives by Gerald Schroeder #Can the Universe Be Young and Old Simultaneously?

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Age of the Universe: One Reality Viewed from Two Different Perspectives by Gerald Schroeder #Can the Universe Be Young and Old Simultaneously? The Age of the Universe: One Reality Viewed from Two Different Perspectives By Gerald Schroeder #Can the universe be young and old simultaneously? For centuries, science and theology have been locked in an ideological battle as to the ultimate source of truth. And basic to this standoff is the question of the age of our universe. Is it an old universe with a history containing fossils of dinosaurs and cavemen, or young with just a few days passing between the creation of the universe and the creation of Adam, the first human being? And if our universe is young, then the so-called ancient fossils were placed in the ground by God to test our faith in the truth of the Bible. The old age measure of our universe is based on research by astronomers and cosmologists. These scientists measure how much light waves from distant galaxies are stretched and lengthened due to the stretching of the space of the universe as those light waves travelled over eons of time to reach us here on earth. The data embedded in those stretched rays of light reveal that our magnificent universe was created at just under 14 billion years ago. The young age measure of our universe is based on data in the Bible. The opening chapter of Genesis states that six days passed between the creation of the universe and the creation of Adam. Then in Genesis, Chapter 4 we read that Adam and Eve had two sons, Cain and Abel. Cain murdered Abel and Cain was exiled by God. The achievements of Cain’s progeny are listed in chapter 4. Then in Chapter 5 we read that 130 years passed before Adam and Eve had their third child who is named Seth, and then 105 years passed before Seth fathered his first child. This pattern of stating the time spans between births is continued with no break until Joseph is sold as a slave into Egypt (Genesis 37:2, 28, 36). We add all those ages plus the years to their exodus from Egyptian slavery and their entering the Promised Land and then their exile from that Land. With the conclusion of the Hebrew Bible we add the ages of the kings, queens, presidents etc. that followed, Summing all those data we reach an age for the universe of a bit less than 6000 years. There is a crucial difference between the information given in the Bible about of the progeny of Cain and the progeny of Seth. This difference is that although the accomplishments of Cain’s progeny are listed, no ages are given for Cain’s progeny but detailed age data are given for Seth’s. This difference in the age data is the hint that the Bible wants us to develop a calendar. It is through Seth that we reach Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the lineage that becomes the Israelite nation. The family line of Cain ends in Chapter 4, so it is irrelevant to an on-going calendar. Age data for Cain’s line would be superfluous if we are to build a calendar and there are no superfluous data in the Bible. This is the clue that the Torah wants us to make a calendar: the Torah tells us all the age data that can contribute to the calculation of a biblical calendar and omits age data (i.e., Cain’s) that would be irrelevant to such a calendar. If no age data were given in the Bible for any of the persons, there would be no theological /scientific controversy today over the age of our magnificent universe. Since the data are given, there must be a reason and a resolution that is faithful to these two sources of wisdom – the ancient words of Torah and the modern discoveries of science, especially since the Author for the Torah is also the Creator of nature. Is it possible that the six days of Genesis are also the 14 billion years of cosmology, even as the six days of Genesis are 24 hours each and the 14 billion of years embrace all our cosmic history without bending either the words of the Torah or the discoveries in science? We must keep in mind that the major commentators on the words of the Torah, Rashi (ca. 1090) and Nahmonides (ca. 1250), stated explicitly that the six days of Genesis are 24 hours each (Rashi commentary on Talmud Hagigah 12A; Nahmonides commentary on Gen. 1:3). Therefore, an explanation of saying that the days of Genesis One were actually long periods of time could be construed as bending the Bible to match the science. They may have made these comments since the sun is not mentioned in the Bible until fourth day of Genesis. The key to the resolution of this seeming conflict is the change in perspective of viewing time. Recall that in Psalm 90:4, we read: “For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it is past, and like a watch in the night.” In this one verse we read about three perspectives of time: 1000 years, a day and a watch in the night. In our universe, perspective is everything when determining the apparent passage of time. Nahmonides insightful viewpoint on the days of Genesis is so direct that it is hard to belie ve that we have missed it so often. First, we must recall that the biblical New Year, Rosh Hashanah, marks the creation of Adam, not the creation of the universe. The six days of Genesis form a separate calendar and stand alone. Therefore, they are described in a unique way. The recurring phrase “and there was evening and there was morning” is unique to Genesis chapter one, the “creation” chapter. At the end of each Genesis day, the day is numbered: day one; second day; third day; fourth day…. Nahmonides asked almost 800 years ago, long before theologians were worried about ancient fossils of cavemen and dinosaurs, why does the form of the day number change from absolute, “one”, to comparative, second, third…? His answer is brilliant. The Torah writes “day one” on that first day because there was not yet a second day. And to write "first", it must be comparative to a second (commentary on Genesis 1:5). We see this in the naming of the world wars. The “great war” (world war one) only became the “first world war” when the 2nd started. The biblical perspective of time for the six days of Genesis is from day one, looking forward. If that perspective were from Sinai looking back, the Torah would have written a “first day” since by Sinai that had been over 890,000 “second” days! We look back in time and measure 14 billion years of cosmic history since the big bang creation of our universe. How would those years be measured from the Bible’s perspective of looking forward from the beginning? This is a totally non- human view of time. The amazing reality of time in our magnificent universe is that the perspective of the time for a series of events compresses as we project that perspective back in time, and it compresses, contracts, gets shorter, exactly as the “size” of the universe compresses as we go back in time. Professor Peebles in his book, Principles of Physical Cosmology, states this perfectly but in technical terms: “The standard interpretation of the redshift (the amount a light wave has been stretched as it travelled to us from a distant place in the universe) as an effect of the expansion of the universe predicts that the same redshift factor applies to observed rates of occurrence of distant events . even when the epoch is so early the redshift cannot be observed in detected radiation.” If we can calculate the magnitude of the expansion of the universe from the start of the biblical calendar’s six days to now, we can calculate how the 14 billion years (dinosaurs and all the rest) would appear from the perspective of the Bible. The key word here is perspective. We are calculating the age of the universe from two vastly different perspectives: the Bible’s perspective looking forward from the beginning when the universe was vastly smaller than now; our perspective looking back with the universe being vastly larger than in the era near the creation. They are two views of one reality. Again, it is Nahmonides who leads the way. He tells us that time was created at the creation (a brilliant insight mirrored by modern scientific concepts) but that time only “grabs hold” when matter forms (commentary Genesis 1:4,5), and that is scientifically true. Energy, light beams, are outside of time; they do not measure time. If an ethereal weightless you travelled on a light beam from the sun to the earth, your watch would record zero time. But if I could watch that light beam as it travelled, I would measure that about 8 minutes and a few seconds passed in that identical journey from sun to earth. Two true perspectives of one event. The first stable matter that formed from the energy of the big bang creation that “ages,” that experiences the passage of time, was protons, the subatomic particles that produce much of the mass of an atom and are theorized to be the product of the decay of neutrons into electrons and protons (free neutrons decay with a half-life of about 10 minutes but are stable when they are within the nucleus of an atom). The Bible views time looking forward into the expanding space of the universe from the moment of the formation of protons, a moment that was a tiny fraction of a second following the big bang creation of the universe, when the universe was vastly smaller than it is today.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Lecture 2 Our Place in the Universe (Cont'd)
    Astronomy 110 –1 Lecture 2 Our Place in the Universe (Cont’d) 14/01/09 1 Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc. A few useful mathematical skills 14/01/09 2 Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc. Powers of ten 103 = 10 x 10 x 10 = 1000 102 = 10 x 10 = 100 101 = 10 100 = 1 10-1 = 1/10 = 0.1 10-2 = 1/10 x 1/10 = 0.01 10-3 = 1/10 x 1/10 x 1/10 = 0.001 Then: 300 = 3 x 100 = 3 x 102 2,500 = 2.5 x 1000 = 2.5 x 103 14/01/09 3 Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc. Multiplying & dividing 101 x 101 = 100 = 102 101 x 102 = 10 x 100 = 1000 = 103 102 x 102 = 100 x 100 = 10000 = 104 When multiplying two powers of ten, add the exponents 1000 ÷ 100 = 103 ÷ 102 = 10 = 101 10 ÷ 10 = 101 ÷ 101 = 1 = 100 10 ÷ 100 = 101 ÷ 102 = 1/10 = 10-1 When dividing, subtract exponent of divisor from exponent of numerator 14/01/09 4 Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc. Powers and roots (104)3 = 104 x 104 x 104 = 1012 Rule of thumb: when raising to a power, multiply exponents What about √(104)? √(104) = 102 taking roots is the same as raising to a fractional power, in this case 1/2 power: √(104) = (104)1/2 = 102 √ is the same as raising to 1/2 power 3√ is the same as raising to 1/3 power 4√ is the same as raising to 1/4 power 14/01/09 5 Copyright © 2009 Pearson Education, Inc.
    [Show full text]
  • Critical Analysis of Article "21 Reasons to Believe the Earth Is Young" by Jeff Miller
    1 Critical analysis of article "21 Reasons to Believe the Earth is Young" by Jeff Miller Lorence G. Collins [email protected] Ken Woglemuth [email protected] January 7, 2019 Introduction The article by Dr. Jeff Miller can be accessed at the following link: http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=9&article=5641 and is an article published by Apologetic Press, v. 39, n.1, 2018. The problems start with the Article In Brief in the boxed paragraph, and with the very first sentence. The Bible does not give an age of the Earth of 6,000 to 10,000 years, or even imply − this is added to Scripture by Dr. Miller and other young-Earth creationists. R. C. Sproul was one of evangelicalism's outstanding theologians, and he stated point blank at the Legionier Conference panel discussion that he does not know how old the Earth is, and the Bible does not inform us. When there has been some apparent conflict, either the theologians or the scientists are wrong, because God is the Author of the Bible and His handiwork is in general revelation. In the days of Copernicus and Galileo, the theologians were wrong. Today we do not know of anyone who believes that the Earth is the center of the universe. 2 The last sentence of this "Article In Brief" is boldly false. There is almost no credible evidence from paleontology, geology, astrophysics, or geophysics that refutes deep time. Dr. Miller states: "The age of the Earth, according to naturalists and old- Earth advocates, is 4.5 billion years.
    [Show full text]
  • Earth: Atmospheric Evolution of a Habitable Planet
    Earth: Atmospheric Evolution of a Habitable Planet Stephanie L. Olson1,2*, Edward W. Schwieterman1,2, Christopher T. Reinhard1,3, Timothy W. Lyons1,2 1NASA Astrobiology Institute Alternative Earth’s Team 2Department of Earth Sciences, University of California, Riverside 3School of Earth and Atmospheric Science, Georgia Institute of Technology *Correspondence: [email protected] Table of Contents 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 2 2. Oxygen and biological innovation .................................................................................... 3 2.1. Oxygenic photosynthesis on the early Earth .......................................................... 4 2.2. The Great Oxidation Event ......................................................................................... 6 2.3. Oxygen during Earth’s middle chapter ..................................................................... 7 2.4. Neoproterozoic oxygen dynamics and the rise of animals .................................. 9 2.5. Continued oxygen evolution in the Phanerozoic.................................................. 11 3. Carbon dioxide, climate regulation, and enduring habitability ................................. 12 3.1. The faint young Sun paradox ................................................................................... 12 3.2. The silicate weathering thermostat ......................................................................... 12 3.3. Geological
    [Show full text]
  • The Solar System
    The Solar System Our automated spacecraft have traveled to the Moon and to all the planets beyond our world The Sun appears to have been active for 4.6 billion years and has enough fuel for another 5 except Pluto; they have observed moons as large as small planets, flown by comets, and billion years or so. At the end of its life, the Sun will start to fuse helium into heavier elements sampled the solar environment. The knowledge gained from our journeys through the solar and begin to swell up, ultimately growing so large that it will swallow Earth. After a billion years system has redefined traditional Earth sciences like geology and meteorology and spawned an as a "red giant," it will suddenly collapse into a "white dwarf" -- the final end product of a star like entirely new discipline called comparative planetology. By studying the geology of planets, ours. It may take a trillion years to cool off completely. moons, asteroids, and comets, and comparing differences and similarities, we are learning more about the origin and history of these bodies and the solar system as a whole. We are also Mercury gaining insight into Earth's complex weather systems. By seeing how weather is shaped on other worlds and by investigating the Sun's activity and its influence through the solar system, Obtaining the first close-up views of Mercury was the primary objective of the Mariner 10 we can better understand climatic conditions and processes on Earth. spacecraft, launched Nov 3, 1973. After a journey of nearly 5 months, including a flyby of Venus, the spacecraft passed within 703 km (437 mi) of the solar system's innermost planet on Mar 29, The Sun 1974.
    [Show full text]
  • Does the Rapid Appearance of Life on Earth Suggest That Life Is Common in the Universe?
    ASTROBIOLOGY Volume 2, Number 3, 2002 © Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. Does the Rapid Appearance of Life on Earth Suggest that Life Is Common in the Universe? CHARLES H. LINEWEAVER 1,2 and TAMARA M. DAVIS 1 ABSTRACT It is sometimes assumed that the rapidity of biogenesis on Earth suggests that life is common in the Universe. Here we critically examine the assumptions inherent in this if-life-evolved- rapidly-life-must-be-common argument. We use the observational constraints on the rapid- ity of biogenesis on Earth to infer the probability of biogenesis on terrestrial planets with the same unknown probability of biogenesis as the Earth. We find that on such planets, older than ,1 Gyr, the probability of biogenesis is .13% at the 95% confidence level. This quan- tifies an important term in the Drake Equation but does not necessarily mean that life is com- mon in the Universe. Key Words: Biogenesis—Drake Equation. Astrobiology 2, 293–304. THE BIOGENESIS LOTTERY duction–oxidation pairs are common (Nealson and Conrad, 1999). UCHOFCURRENTASTROBIOLOGICALRESEARCH Mis focused on learning more about the early It is difficult to translate this circumstantial ev- evolution of the Earth and about the origin of life. idence into an estimate of how common life is in We may be able to extrapolate and generalize our the Universe. Without definitive detections of ex- knowledge of how life formed here to how it traterrestrial life we can say very little about how might have formed elsewhere. Indirect evidence common it is or even whether it exists. Our exis- suggesting that life may be common in the Uni- tence on Earth can tell us little about how com- verse includes: mon life is in the Universe or about the proba- bility of biogenesis on a terrestrial planet because, Sun-like stars are common.
    [Show full text]
  • Alternate Constellation Guide
    ARKANSAS NATURAL SKY ASSOCIATION LEARNING THE CONSTELLATIONS (Library Telescope Manual included) By Robert Togni Cover Image courtesy of Wikimedia. Do not write in this book, and return with scope to library. A personal copy of this guide can be obtained online at www.darkskyarkansas.com Preface This publication was inspired by and built upon Robert (Rocky) Togni’s quest to share the night sky with all who can be enticed under it. His belief is that the best place to start a relationship with the night sky is to learn the constellations and explore the principle ob- jects within them with the naked eye and a pair of common binoculars. Over a period of years, Rocky evolved a concept, using seasonal asterisms like the Summer Triangle and the Winter Hexagon, to create an easy to use set of simple charts to make learning one’s way around the night sky as simple and fun as possible. Recognizing that the most avid defenders of the natural night time environment are those who have grown to know and love nature at night and exploring the universe that it re- veals, the Arkansas Natural Sky Association (ANSA) asked Rocky if the Association could publish his guide. The hope being that making this available in printed form at vari- ous star parties and other relevant venues would help bring more people to the night sky as well as provide funds for the Association’s work. Once hooked, the owner will definitely want to seek deeper guides. But there is no better publication for opening the sky for the neophyte observer, making the guide the perfect companion for a library telescope.
    [Show full text]
  • New Model of Abiogenesis
    Goldschmidt2020 Abstract New model of abiogenesis A. IVANOV1, V. SEVASTYANOV1, A. DOLGONOSOV1 AND E. GALIMOV1 1Vernadsky Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry of Russian Academу of Sciences, Kosygina street 19, Moscow 119334, Russia ([email protected]) Understanding the nature of the causes that led to the beginning of the structural self-organization of protobionts is a fundamental question in finding solutions to the problem of abiogenic origin of life. The main difficulties in understanding the question - how this happened, arise due to the fact that after 4 billion years of geological and biological activity of the planet, direct material evidence, the complex process of spontaneous generation of living matter, was not found. But is it possible, with a detailed examination of the geophysical and geochemical features of the situation of the early Earth, to restore the history of the sequence of prebiological events that predetermined the formation of protocellular precursors of the first living organisms? After all, in fact, having embarked on this path, you can trace the order of formation of prebiotic structures reveal the principle of self-organization of primary biological matter, and eventually come to a pristine type of living matter. Probably, the primary living matter required not only special conditions, but also special location that could protect and maintain its existence for a long time, since the aggressive environment of the primitive Earth would not allow primitive life to develop without such protection. This is due to the various kinds of exposure to hard cosmic radiation, as well as the adverse effects of other physical and chemical factors.
    [Show full text]
  • Paleontology and the History of Life
    36954_u01.qxd 7/11/08 2:01 PM Page 80 Paleontology and the History of Life Michael Benton And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. Genesis 2:19 People have always been astounded by the diversity of life, although perhaps in different ways. In prescientific times farmers saw how their crops and live- stock were merely part of a much larger richness of life, and people have al- ways striven to understand the complexity and arrangement of living things. From Aristotle to Linnaeus, scientists attempted to catalog life and to under- stand where it had come from. During the eighteenth century it became clear to all savants that the earth had been populated formerly by strange and mar- velous creatures that had since become extinct. By 1820 some rough picture of the succession of floras and faunas through geological time was beginning to emerge. Charles Darwin, during the voyage of HMS Beagle in the early 1830s, became increasingly convinced that life was more diverse than he had imagined—every island he visited sported a new crop of plants and animals. He saw the lateral (geographic) and vertical (historic) links between species and realized by 1837 that species were all linked by a great tree. The tree con- cept made it clear why species that in his time were geographically close should also be genealogically close.
    [Show full text]
  • Timeline of the Universe (1 Year Calculator) Time on Timeline Time
    Timeline of the Universe (1 Year Calculator) Time on Timeline Time in Reality Event 1 January 15 billion years ago Beginning of universe Early Jan-Mid March 12-14.7 billion years ago Birth of solar system Early September 5 billion years ago Birth of Sun and planets 25 December 225 million years ago Mammals appear on Earth 29 December 65 million years ago Extinction of dinosaurs, more mammals appear 30 December 5 million years ago First Ancestors of man appear 31 December 11:53:00 pm (23:53:00) 195,000 years ago Homo Sapiens appears 31 December 11:59:52 pm (23:59:52) 4300 years ago Building of Stonehenge 31 December 11:59:59 pm (23:59:59) Around 400 years ago Invention of the Telescope https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cosmic_Calendar.png Event Number of Years Ago Number of Days Ago on Date/Time on Calendar Calculator The Big Bang 13.7 billion 365 days Jan 1, 12am Formation of stars & galaxies 13 billion (roughly) 365 days plus 15 min Jan 1, 12:15am Formation of the thin disk of 9 billion (roughly) 240 days May 6 the Milky Way Galaxy Formation of the Solar System 4.56 billion 122 days Sept. 1 Formation of the Moon 4.5 billion (roughly) 120 days Sept. 3 Birth of life on Earth 3.8 billion (roughly) 101 days Sept. 22 First cells develop on Earth 2 billion (roughly) 53 days Nov. 9 First Vertebrates 520 million (roughly) 14 days Dec. 18 First Dinosaurs 230 million 6 days Dec.
    [Show full text]
  • Spring Observing Notes
    Wynyard Planetarium & Observatory Spring Observing Notes Wynyard Planetarium & Observatory PUBLIC OBSERVING – Spring Tour of the Sky with the Naked Eye 2 1 Pointers Merak The Plough 4 Dubhe 5 Mizar Is Kochab Ursa Minor orange Kochab compared 3 to Polaris? Perseus Mirfak Polaris Pherkad 9 6 Algol Cassiopeia Look for the W shape delta 8 gamma 7 Notice how the constellations swing around Polaris during the night c Rob Peeling Feb-08 Figure 1: Sketch of the northern sky in spring North 1. On leaving the planetarium, turn around and look northwards over the roof of the building. Now look nearly straight above yourself and somewhat to your right and find a group of stars like the outline of a upside-down with its handle stretching to the right. This is the Plough (also called the Big Dipper) and is part of the constellation Ursa Major, the Great Bear. The top two stars are called the Pointers. 2. Use the Pointers to guide you downwards, to the next bright star. This is Polaris, the Pole (or North) Star. Note that it is not the brightest star in the sky, a common misconception. 3. Polaris, Kochab and Pherkad mark the constellation Ursa Minor, the Little Bear. To the right of Polaris are two prominent but fainter stars. These are Kochab and Pherkad, the Guardians of the Pole. Look carefully and you will notice that Kochab is slightly orange when compared to Polaris. Check with binoculars. Not all stars are white. The colour © Rob Peeling, CaDAS, 2008 Wynyard Planetarium & Observatory PUBLIC OBSERVING – Spring shows that Kochab is cooler than Polaris in the same way that red-hot is cooler than white-hot.
    [Show full text]
  • Big History Teaching Guide
    TEACHER MATERIALS BIG HISTORY TEACHING GUIDE Table of Contents Welcome to the Big History Project! 4 Join the Community 5 Who Should Teach Big History? 6 Course Themes 7 Essential Skills 7 Core Concepts 7 Course Structure 9 Part 1: Formations and Early Life 9 Part 2: Humans 10 Course Content 12 Lesson resources 13 Activities 13 Investigations 13 Project-based Learning Activities 13 Guiding Documents 13 Additional Resources 14 BIG HISTORY PROJECT / TEACHING GUIDE 1 TEACHER MATERIALS Extended Big History Offerings 15 Big History Public Course 15 Big History Project on Facebook and Twitter 15 Big History on Khan Academy 15 Big History on H2 15 Crash Course Big History 15 Teaching Big History 16 Teacher as Lead Learner 16 Big History Reading Guide 17 Approach to Reading 18 How to Meet These Goals 20 Big History Writing Guide 23 Part I: Prewriting 23 Part II: Outlining and Drafting 23 Part III: Revising and Finalizing 24 Assessment in Big History 25 Rubrics 25 Closings 25 Writing Assessments 25 Lesson Quizzes 26 Driving Question Notebook Guide 27 Who sees the DQ Book? 27 Little Big History 28 Project Based Learning 29 Openings Guide 30 BIG HISTORY PROJECT / TEACHING GUIDE 2 TEACHER MATERIALS Vocab Activities Guide 31 Menu of Activities 31 Memorization Activities 31 Comprehension Activities 33 Application Activities 34 Interpreting Infographics Guide 36 Homework Guide 37 Video 37 Readings 37 Sample Lesson - Origin Stories 39 BIG HISTORY PROJECT / TEACHING GUIDE 3 TEACHER MATERIALS Welcome to the Big History Project! Big History weaves evidence and insights from many disciplines across 13.8 billion years into a single, cohesive, science-based origin story.
    [Show full text]
  • The Problem of the Age of the Universe and the Earliest Galaxies
    The Problem of the Age of the Universe and the Earliest Galaxies Roger Ellman Abstract A number of years ago the estimates of astronomers and astrophysicists were that the earliest galaxies took about 2½ - 3 billion years to form, that is, that they did not appear until 2.5-3.0 billion years after the Big Bang. Those estimates were based on analysis of the processes involved in star formation and in the aggregation and “clumping” of matter in the early universe. Since then improved equipment and techniques [e.g. Keck and Hubble telescopes and gravitational lensing] have resulted in reports of observation of early galaxies having stars that formed as early as 300 million years after the Big Bang. Such new data has led to the abandonment of the several billion years estimates of the time required for star and galaxy formation; however, an alternative response to the data would be to re-examine the Hubble theory from which the age of the universe and the distance to high redshift objects is determined. Roger Ellman, The-Origin Foundation, Inc. 320 Gemma Circle, Santa Rosa, CA 95404, USA [email protected] http://www.The-Origin.org 1 The Problem of the Age of the Universe and the Earliest Galaxies Roger Ellman Background of the Problem A number of years ago the estimates of astronomers and astrophysicists were that the earliest galaxies took about 2½ - 3 billion years to form, that is, that they did not appear until 2.5-3.0 billion years after the Big Bang. Those estimates were based on analysis of the processes involved in star formation and in the aggregation and “clumping” of matter in the early universe.
    [Show full text]