How Old Is The Earth?

The Earth is clearly old, but exactly how old was difficult to work out. People long believed the Earth had only existed for several thousand years. Then, in the 1800's, a study of geological features (including fjords) led scientists to the conclusion that the planet must be much older - at least millions of years old. Later, the discovery of radioactivity provided a mechanism by which the Earth's core could be continually heated. This meant it was much older than previous estimates of 20-40 million years based on the cooling rate of the Earth. Today through many different methods we have established that the Earth is roughly 4.54 billion years old!

Category:

Education

Tags:

• age of the earth
• earth's age
• how old is the earth
• fjord
• milford sound
• veritasium
• evolution of life
• history of life
• science literacy

[dpugh76]

Love these videos and this one is no exception. Your premise of starting with the misconceptions is definitely key, as per the Khan Video piece. You should probably credit Richard Dawkins in here somewhere though - I've seen this exact analogy in a video of his (Growing Up in the Universe??). Perhaps that's not even the original source?

[1veritasium]

@dpugh76 You're right I think this analogy may be in quite a few sources though I saw it in Dawkins (or was it Asimov?). Bill Bryson has a good 24 hour day analogy. There are so many good ones out there, I just wanted to convey the idea that millions of years are not enough for all the events in Earth's history.

[ezekiel0920]

i missed out on going to milford.. :(

but dude hectic drawings!



[1veritasium]

@ezekiel0920 you should see the dinosaurs that didn't make the cut!

[1veritasium]

now posted on the Ve facebook page

[liverpoolrocks737633]

why does this awesome video have so few viewers??? they should get many more views

[Cinqmil]

I'm confused here: I know the earth is around 4.5billion years old, but how long ago did the first life start? Is it also 4.5 billion years ago?

[topas12345]

To be more precise 4.567 billion years ;)

[Aviatorsmith]

@cyclone493 What evidence is there for the universe being 6000 years old? How are the dating methods unreliable? Different dating methods using different nuclear mechanisms all yield the same results.

[Aviatorsmith]

@TheFennahh 65 million years ago*

[TheCheseWzrd]

@cyclone493 There are also massive pot holes in christianity...which is were the idea that the world is only 6000 years old..there are alot less pot holes in evolution than what there are in religion

[Raicuparta]

lol "humans have been around the tip of my middle finger"

[falafel1995]

I always thought it was 4.6 bn.

[MomoTheBellyDancer]

How the heck can you go living without even knowing how old the earth is? The mind boggles.

[musicplayah]

@goldenskills1991 Understandable, though in my country or in any of the european countries for that matter 6000 years is simply denied. I've never ever met a single person who say they do believe that but surely there are a very small minority that does believe it. My stepmother is what you could call a fundemental christian (for being this country) and she doesn't believe it and she also believes in evolution even though she thinks the bible is 100% true, contradictory but yea