{"id":201398,"date":"2020-03-06T16:00:58","date_gmt":"2020-03-06T16:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.factstoryhub.com\/?p=201398"},"modified":"2023-10-05T08:03:22","modified_gmt":"2023-10-05T07:03:22","slug":"how-old-is-the-universe","status":"publish","type":[],"link":"https:\/\/www.factstoryhub.com\/how-old-is-the-universe\/","title":{"rendered":"How Old is the Universe?"},"content":{"rendered":"
If you\u2019ve ever gone camping and looked up at the stars at night, you\u2019ve probably been filled by a deep sense of awe at the sheer enormity of it.\n
On a clear night, you can see into the depths of the universe, and this sometimes spurs on some deep thoughts.\n
What are we really looking at when we gaze up at the starry night sky? How old are those far flung stars that dot the sky? How old is the universe?\n
These are questions of astronomy, or even astrophysics.\n
Before we go further, let\u2019s take a look into the origins of these unearthly pursuits.\n
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Since the dawn of humanity and conscious thought, humans have shared similar experiences.\n
As the ages passed by, our knowledge of the cosmos has increased.\n
At first we thought that we were at the center of the universe.\n
It was understood that all things revolved around the planet Earth, and this was why the Sun and the Moon danced across our horizon.\n At this time, the earth was also widely believed to be flat.\n Some time later, in 1514, a Polish astronomer by the name of Nicolaus Copernicus distributed a hand-written manuscript titled The Little Commentary.\n Copernicus proposed that the Sun is the center of the universe, not the earth, and that the cycle of the Sun and the Moon is due to rotation of the Earth.\n Copernicus\u2019 findings ultimately changed the way in which we examined the universe, as he was the first to use a combined approach of mathematics and physics with astronomy.\n While this paved the way for future scientists, physicists and astronomers alike, it wasn\u2019t until the 17th century that Copernicus\u2019 theories were commonly held as fact.\n As scientific knowledge advanced, so our thoughts turned towards the bigger questions about the universe. Scientists began to muse on the origins of our universe, and to question whether the universe always existed.\n By the 18th century there were two main theories on the universe.\n The first was that it was in the millions of years old.\n The second theory, originally published in Sigur of Brabant\u2019s The Eternity of the World in the 13th century, held that the universe had neither beginning nor end \u2013 it was eternal.\n In the mid-19th century our ideas of the universe of the century started to radically change.\n Physicists started developing the first theories of thermodynamics, a branch of physics which deals with temperature and heat.\n The theory of entropy was established, which says that if the universe had no beginning or end, then all matter within it would be of the same temperature.\n This contradicted current theories, as it was well known by this point that there were great temperature differences across the known universe.\nIs the universe a few millions of years old? Not quite.\n
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