Script DNL

Hello, I'm going to give you a presentation on the evolution of the theories on the age of the
Earth.
To understand this we will first look at Buffon, then Darwin, then Kelvin and finally Ruther-
ford.

For Buffon, his first idea was that the Earth was a molten ball. He thinks this because volca-
noes spew lava into the Earth's interior. Having been a molten ball, the earth cooled and for-
med the earth's crust, after which life developed on Earth.
So he wants to measure the cooling time to calculate the age of the Earth.
He deduced that the Earth is approximately seventy-four thousand forty-seven years.
Buffon's result was also 10 million years, but he preferred to keep it as short as possible, in
keeping with the limited power of our intelligence.

Then Darwin used his new theory of natural selection to deduce the age of the Earth.
According to him, species are formed from one another and accumulate modifications.
He has several arguments
Firstly, the time since erosion of a rock began can be calculated from the actual erosion rate of
the rock and from observation of the thickness of eroded rock.
Secondly, we can associate the measured sedimentation rate of deposits from different rivers
with the thickness of sedimentary rocks.
This makes it possible to deduce a theoretical age for the Earth of several billion years.

Then Kelvin takes up Buffon's theory of a molten Earth.

He also uses a theory on the thermal transport of energy in solids by conduction developed by
a mathematician.
He finds that the Earth is between 20 and 400 million years old.

Rutherford uses half-lives, the time it takes for half the elements to disintegrate.
So he looks for rocks that formed at the same time as the Earth.
He finds that the Earth is four billion and fifty-seven million years old.
Scientists agree on this result
So many elements and theories have been used to date the age of the Earth by different scien-
tists at different times, but they all agree on Rutherford's result.