The age of planet Earth is something that scientists have been discussing for a long time.The first calculation was made in the middle of the century XVII from the data extracted from the book of Genesis.Since that time other experiments and calculations have been carried out that, with greater or lesser scientific rigor, have tried to clarify this question.
Already in 1654 , A scholar named John Lightfoot , whose calculations were based on the book of Genesis in the Bible, proclaimed that the Earth had been created precisely at 9 o'clock.tomorrow, Mesopotamia time, on October 26 of the year 4004 BC .
At the beginning of the XVIII century, a scientist, the count of Buffon , warmed a small replica of the planet he created and measured the speed to which it cooled.Based on these data I estimate that the Earth was about 75,000 years old.
In the 19th century, the Physical Lord Kelvin I use different equations to establish that the Earth was between 20 and 40 million years .
With the discovery of the radioactivity at the end of the 19th century all this became obsolete thanks to the possibility of calculating the decay rates of various radioactive substances.Scientists have used this knowledge to determine the age of terrestrial rocks as well as the age of samples of meteorites and rocks brought from the Moon.
One of the studies that have been carried out has been based on the analysis of the state of decomposition of lead isotopes from rocks , which has then been compared with a scale based on calculations of how lead isotopes could change over time.From these data, scientists have been able to determine that the Earth was formed approximately 4540 million years ago with an uncertainty of less than 1%.
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