The Universe Is 13.73 Billion Years Old

CaptainCarrot writes "Phil Plait, aka The Bad Astronomer has summarized for his readers the new results released by NASA from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), which has been surveying the 3K microwave radiation left over from the Big Bang. Some of the most interesting results: The age of the universe is now known to unprecedented accuracy: 13.73 billion years old, +/- 120 million. Spacetime is flat to within a 2% error margin. And ordinary matter and energy account for only 4.62% of the universe's total. Plait's comment on the age result: 'Some people might say it doesn't look a day over 6000 years. They're wrong.'"

It is 13.73 billion years and three days old

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

They forgot to take into account the time they did the experiment and the time they published the results.

Big Mistake

[clonan]

'Some people might say it doesn't look a day over 6000 years. They're wrong.'"

You NEVER tell a woman she looks older!!!

Some Perspective:

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Go placidly amid the noise and waste,
and remember what comfort there may be in owning a piece thereof.
Avoid quiet and passive persons, unless you are in need of sleep.
Rotate your tires.
Speak glowingly of those greater than yourself
and heed well their advice, even though they be turkeys.
Know what to kiss... and when.
Consider that two wrongs never make a right... but that three do.
Wherever possible, put people on hold.
Be comforted that in the face of all erridity and disallusionment,
and despite the changing fortunes of time,
there is always a big future in computer maintainance.

Remember the Pueblo.
Strive at all times to bend, fold, spindle, and mutilate.
Know yourself. If you need help, call the FBI.
Exercise caution in your daily affairs,
especially with those persons closest to you...
that lemon on your left, for instance.
Be assured that a walk through the ocean of most souls
would scarcely get your feet wet.
Fall not in love, therefore; it will stick to your face.
Gracefully surrender the things of youth,
birds, clean air, tuna, Taiwan,
and let not the sands of time get in your lunch.
Hire people with hooks.
For a good time call 606-4311. Ask for Ken.
Take heart amid the deepening gloom
that your dog is finally getting enough cheese,
and reflect that whatever misfortune may be your lot,
it could only be worse in Milwaukee.

You are a fluke of the Universe.
You have no right to be here,
and weather you can hear it or not,
the Universe is laughing behind your back.

Therefore, make peace with your god,
whatever you conceive him to be:
hairy thunderer or cosmic muffin.
With all its hopes, dreams, promises, and urban renewal,
the world continues to deteriorate.

Give up

Music by Christopher Guest

Wait

[Anonymous Coward]

There was a universe before I was born?

Mother in Law's Age?

[ToxikFetus]

Well, I'm glad that's settled. Now let's see if they can figure out my mother-in-law's age.

Figurative or literal?

[hal2814]

"After about a microsecond, it had cooled enough for protons and neutrons to form. Three minutes later (yes, just three minutes) it had cooled enough for protons and neutrons to stick together."

Is it a literal microsecond or a figurative one? You always have to question measurements of time in creation stories. Did they really mean a minute? Maybe that minute was 4 years long...

How flat is the universe?

[lpangelrob]

We now know that the universe is flat with only a 2% margin of error.

This would make a good bar bet - which is flatter, the universe, or Kansas? [guardian.co.uk]

The Answers Were Already There!

[eldavojohn]

The age of the universe is now known to unprecedented accuracy: 13.73 billion years old, +/- 120 million. Spacetime is flat to within a 2% error margin. And ordinary matter and energy account for only 4.62% of the universe's total. Plait's comment on the age result: 'Some people might say it doesn't look a day over 6000 years. They're wrong.'"

This was already spelled out in the bible, the answers are all there. Recall that the number of towns and villages in Joshua [ibs.org] concatenated with the number of sons Abraham's brother had [ibs.org] concatenated with how many days old Isaac was when he was circumcised [ibs.org] concatenated with the number of sons Noah had [ibs.org] concatenated with Jesus' age when he died is (by no mere coincidence) 2288333 1/3! Which proves that one year to God is like 2,288,333 and 1/3 years to humans.

Do the math, the earth really is 6,000 god years x 2288333 1/3 human yr/god yr = 13.73 billion human years old!

It all fits, the answers were already right before your eyes in the good book. Who needs a scientician or "NASA" to tell us this when we already know it?!

Re:The 6000-year people may be right

[Anonymous Coward]

Contrary to what the average slashbot living in their parents' basement thinks, there *is* hard scientific evidence that the Earth is only 6000 years old.

For example... [creationmoments.com]

I wonder how many atheists will just pooh-pooh this evidence instead of actually trying to retort it.

Re:Figurative or literal?

[truthsearch]

You always have to question measurements of time in creation stories.

Maybe in Genensis one day is 2 billion of our current years. That would mean the Biblical time period is correct. Maybe the creationists are right, just their precision is off!

Re:There is no contradiction.

[MightyMartian]

And when you can get a ship traveling sufficient close to C for this to be the case, let us know.

Re:There is no contradiction.

[Wandering Wombat]

So... you've proved that Photons are Christian?

Yeah but...

[metalpres]

what was there 13.74 billion years ago? There could not have been nothing, something had to exist. You cant be making something out of nothing at all... except love of course (rimshot).

Re:There is no contradiction.

[theskipper]

Only if they've "seen the light".

Re:Big Mistake

[pilgrim23]

In the beginning the singularity was void and without (much of anything), then BLIND CHANCE said "Let there be Quanta!"
and the morning and the evening of the first femtosecond. .......And the Hawkings radiation begat energy, and the energy begat matter, yea even unto the event horizon... Hey the only Genesis I know well was made by Sega...

Re:Big Mistake

[RealProgrammer]

She might be 13 billion, but she has the body of a 16 billion year old.

Re:It is 13.73 billion years and three days old

[Brian Gordon]

Yeah, but the universe has gotten 7.5 billion years older in the last 30 years, so you have to scale it too.

Re:There is no contradiction.

[rice_burners_suck]

I have this rowboat outside called the Poseidon. I drop a C compiler CD-ROM into the water next to it and I'm in a ship traveling close to C. Heck, I can travel close to C++ for that matter.

Re:Mother in Law's Age?

[Roger W Moore]

Well they have at least put an upper limit on it. It must be less than 13.73 billion!

Re:Wait

[sm62704]

Yes, believe it or not, there was. I know because I was a beta tester for dirt.

They never did get all the bugs out.

Re:There is no contradiction.

[Wandering Wombat]

You're never going to see a Jewish person moving THAT fast...

One glaring problem with this calculation

[93 Escort Wagon]

The universe was born on February 29 - so it's really just a bit over 3 billion years old.

Re:Big Mistake

[Zeinfeld]

"The Universe Is 13.73 Billion Years Old"

Aren't we forgetting something before we start the flamefest?

Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday dear universe
Happy

Oh crap the RIAA just appeared at my desk complaining about a copyright infringement.

Re:It is 13.73 billion years and three days old

[Soleen]

13.73 Billion Years: hm, good uptime so far...
Will 64bit clock counter should be long enough to count since the creation of universe but for how long?

Re:Wait

[morgan_greywolf]

You do realize, sir, that this revelation officially makes you older than dirt?

Re:Precision vs accuracy

[Mr. Underbridge]

You can do the same experiment as many times as you want, but as long as you are using the same theoretical foundations, you won't get any closer to the actual result. The only way to judge that the results are accurate are to devise experiments capable of giving results similarly precise but which are founded on different, but accepted, principles. Sort of like how the various methods for dating fossils give similar results.

Still won't work. Those methods have also been validated by testing against multiple known samples - otherwise, you find yourself in a catch-22 in which you can't trust the alternate methods either. What you need to do is build a fusion reactor, create a bunch of new universes, warp into them at some future time, and measure their age. Then come back and tell me about it. Oh, and make sure you don't kill your dad or something in the process, or then you're really screwed.

Otherwise, we're all just pissing in the wind here.

Of course the universe is flat!

[AngryDad]

Moreover, as out ion-beam reflection tests determined, it rests on 6 elephants, not 5 as we previously thought. :) /AD

Re:Big Mistake

[xSauronx]

I was thinking "6k ought to be enough for anybody" /close enough, right?

Re:Big Mistake

[Hognoxious]

BUT, the original hebrew/aramaic translations describe a day as a period or era

... or even a parsec?

Re:Big Mistake

[Anonymous Coward]

"It is entirely possible our universe was created by a supreme being."

And it is called the "Big, Bada Boom".

Re:Wait

[Joe the Lesser]

Said the sparrow: "That's not a bug, that's a feature."

Re:Big Mistake

[Zeinfeld]

Well duuuhhh, I said the RIAA appeared, not that they had a case.

According to Warner the song is in copyright till 2030. I don't think its a claim that could be sustained though. Splitting one note is hardly cause for a 45 year extention of copyright.

Re:Mother in Law's Age?

[3waygeek]

just cut her in half and count the rings.

Re:There is no contradiction.

[Wordplay]

Come on, don't show your bias; try to be Objective-C.

Re:Big Mistake

[UncleTogie]

And it is called the "Big, Bada Boom".

...so you're saying that Dark Matter is just another name for the Fifth Element?

Re:There is no contradiction.

[Ortega-Starfire]

No, Photons have mass, they are Catholic.

Well Happy Birthday Universe!!

[Timmy D Programmer]

I remember when you were just knee high to a grasshopper. Now look at you, so big and 'universal'

Re:It is 13.73 billion years and three days old

[gnick]

...about another 570,792,046,090 years.

Only if you track time using an unsigned integer - You know about the problems that caused in some programs storing dates prior to 1970.

What if we want to reference an event before the universe existed? I think the best solution is just to keep a sign bit and re-evaluate the issue in 278.54 billion years.

Isn't it obvious?

[microbox]

So which of Earth's many religions is the correct one with respect to the creation of the universe?

That would be The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster [venganza.org]

Re:I've never understood that

[Chris Burke]

I like Bill Hick's response to that argument.

"Well, God put fossils here to test our faith!"
"I think he put you here to test my faith, dude."

Re:Big Mistake

[jd]

Heh. Isaac Asimov wrote a great short story in which the creation story had to be shrunk from 14 billion years to 7 days in order to save on the cost of papyrus.

13.79 years = about to hit puberty

[spineboy]

Oh boy I can see it now, the universe is 17.79 billion years and should go thru puberty soon. Bad mood swings, voice changes, hair growing on funny places like Saturns rings, the M31 and M5 galaxies are both getting bigger,.....and those funny sensations.

Re:It is 13.73 billion years and three days old

[jameskojiro]

Why use only an integer, use a whole array to store the date, we also need an array to keep track of branching timelines as well as alternate realities, and any other thing beyond the 11th dimension.

Then you could record the universe like an IPv6 IP address. divided by epochs.

Epoch 1.Epoch 2.Epoch 3.Epoch 4.Epoch 5.Epoch 6

0.0.0.0.0.4130000 years old.

Re:Big Mistake

[Oktober Sunset]

Appropriate sound effect. [tk421.net]

Universe is flat?

[ROMRIX]

We now know that the universe is flat with only a 2% margin of error.

That's what they said about the earth 400 years ago...
Just you wait, a few more centuries and everyone will realize the true shape is a spherically inverted multifaceted poly-dimensional plexoid of random size. Mark my word, you'll see.

Re:Scientists aren't opposed to the big G

[Anonymous Coward]

There's also global-warming deniers too.

And global-cooling deniers too! You're not a DENIER, *are you*? You can always tell zealots by the way they throw in jabs for their pet topic, even when it has nothing to do with the topic at hand.

I got the same feeling from the last line of the summary. It was a totally unnecessary jab.

Oh, and Microsoft sucks.

</flamebait>

Re:Big Mistake

[Anonymous Coward]

Atheist: a person with no invisible means of support

  - John Buchan

Re:13.79 years = about to hit puberty

[metamorfoza]

probaly form his early childhood. whilst looking at stars his uncle must've said something like: "let me see uranus"

Leet

[Ihmhi]

Why couldn't it be 13.37 Billion years old? Almost a message from a greater power, I'd say...